Fuel up your chainsaws and sharpen your meat hooks, because A24 is cooking up a massacre.
Production is finally underway for A24’s TV take on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – the first project slated after the company secured franchise rights late last year in a bloody, months-long bidding war.
Now, the question is whether A24 can pull off the seemingly impossible and deliver an installment that meets the standards of Leatherface lovers from Texas and beyond.
The series was announced yesterday, with last year’s The Long Walk writer JT Mollner set to direct and Texan actor Glen Powell attached to executive produce (but not star).
This marks A24’s second bite at the legacy horror cherry, with their Friday the 13th prequel series Crystal Lake expected to release late this year.
The franchise seems to be in good hands with Mollner and co., as the filmmaker has previously confessed his reverence for the original source – “I’m not interested in remaking perfect films, and the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a perfect film.”
He does, however, plan to delve deeper into the gritty, sweltering lore of the series. “When the opportunity for a longform exploration into this world arose, I saw it as a fresh way in, as well as a way to honor the existing folklore.”
Texas Chainsaw as a franchise has a long-winded history – the original was made on a shoestring budget of $140,000 and grossed over $30 million in 1974.
In the 80’s, New Line Cinema bought distribution rights and churned out nine movies (of middling quality), plus comics, novels and video games.
An additional movie in “early development” was announced alongside the series, but without Mollner attached.
Let’s just hope whoever takes the helm for that installment delivers something better than the last few attempts made to revive the franchise. (Did anybody else even see the 2022 Netflix remake?)
While plot details for both the series and film are still under wraps, we can (hopefully) expect killer things from A24’s boundary-pushing, Mollner’s history with horror and Powell’s Texan blood.
