Now, THR reports that the rights to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre have reverted to Exurbia Films (which is partly owned by original co-writer Kim Henckel) and are, thus, back on the market for anyone looking to make an offer. (Legendary Entertainment had had possession of them since 2017, using them for the Netflix film.) No bidding war has broken out just yet, because various groups are still working up potential packages before anybody starts tossing money around. But THR reports that at least a few big names in the world of modern horror movie-making have suggested they’ll toss their human-skin hats into the ring when the time comes, including, reportedly, It director Andy Muschietti. There’s also apparently a team-up being talked about between Strange Darling director J.T. Mollner and blockbuster heartthrob Glen Powell, which, sure, sounds suitably bizarre.
The immediate interest speaks to a few different factors—including the simple fact that a lot of horror fans came up watching Hooper’s original film and would love to take a crack at their own version (even if it, pretty much, never works out). From a business point of view, meanwhile, the appeal is obvious: Half the reason horror movies get made is because they’re so cheap that pretty much any moderate interest from fans can turn a profit—see the Terrifier phenomenon for just the most recent example—and adding a name-brand IP that isn’t locked to a particular studio is thought to only make that process easier. (See, for instance, 2006’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning and 2013’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D, both of which generated several million in profits despite taking a drubbing from critics.) (Although you also don’t want to overpay; nobody wants to make Exorcist: The Believer 2.0.) We don’t know if TCM fans will flock to theaters just because they might get to see Glen Powell get carved up with a chainsaw—Muschietti feels like the bigger draw for this demographic, even if his budgets tend to run a little high for splatter horror—but the great thing about horror movies is that it’s relatively painless to roll the dice on a brand that pretty much everybody in the world has already heard of.
