Leatherface is coming home, baby! Just after the fiftieth anniversary of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre came to pass, it looks like a new film in the franchise is in the works. According to Deadline, Strange Darling director JT Mollner is reportedly in talks to take over a new iteration of the franchise — and if he does, Running Man star Glen Powell could be the one to lead it.
Nothing’s set in stone yet, but it looks like Verve, who’ve owned the rights to the Tobe Hooper-created franchise since 2017, are actively looking for a new director to serve as custodian for the slasher series.
“Verve represents The Texas Chainsaw Massacreestate and is building out a multimedia strategy for the seminal horror franchise,” a Verve rep told Deadline. “Verve has not officially submitted the property into any filmmakers, producers or buyers. Because this is such a hot and iconic horror property, packages are preemptively being brought to Verve.”
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre legacy began in 1974 with Tobe Hooper’s original slasher, which spawned eight sequels of varying types and success, though only some remain as lauded as the original. The last entry into the franchise came in 2022, when Netflix produced a film under the same name as the original (though with no space in the word chainsaw, notably), which starred Elsie Fisher and Sarah Yarkin. The reboot was generally lambasted by audiences, so this new take could serve as an opportunity for Verve to give the much-loved franchise some new blood and get it in front of a new generation of audiences.
This wouldn’t be the first time Powell’s led a reboot of a franchise created by a horror icon, either. He’s currently set to star in Edgar Wright’s remake of The Running Man, which had previously been adapted into a film starring Arnols Schwarzenegger and is based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, written under the pen name Richard Bachman.
No other details about the planned Texas Chain Saw Massacre film are available. Stay tuned to FANGORIA for more updates.
