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SYFY WIRE The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Vroom! Vroom! A new Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot will be slicing into theaters

By Josh Weiss
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Leatherface is returning to the big screen in yet another reboot of the iconic Texas Chainsaw Massacre horror franchise.

According to Variety, Legendary has closed a deal with Ryan and Andy Tohill to direct the movie, which will be penned by Chris Thomas Devlin. Fede Alvarez (director of Evil Dead and Don't Breathe) is on board as a producer alongside his usual writing partner, Rodolfo Sayagues.

“The Tohills’ vision is exactly what the fans want,” Alvarez said in a statement to Variety. “It’s violent, exciting, and so depraved that it will stay with you forever.”

There are no further details beyond confirmation that the project is actually happening, but be sure to check back with SYFY WIRE as more developments are announced.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series began in 1974 with an extremely low-budget feature from up-and-coming filmmaker Tobe Hooper (Poltergeist). Centering on a group of teens slaughtered by the Sawyers — a psychotic family of murderous cannibals — the film went on to become a horror and pop culture classic, helping spawn the slasher boom of the 1980s. Of course, the most famous member of the Sawyer clan is Leatherface, a hulking and emotionally stunted man who wears the faces of people he has killed. His famous weapon of choice is (you guessed it!) a rusty chainsaw.

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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre spawned three sequels that began to slip in quality after the second installment in 1986, which was also directed by Hooper. Nevertheless, Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation are still notable for featuring famous young actors before they blew up in fame like Renée Zellweger, Matthew McConaughey, and Viggo Mortensen.

New Line Cinema and Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes rebooted the franchise in 2003 with a movie that starred and featured cinematography from the original film's director of photography, Daniel Pearl. This led to a prequel in 2006: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, which starred Matt Bomer.

By 2013, Lionsgate had the rights and released Texas Chainsaw 3D, which ignored everything that came before and served as a direct sequel to the 1974 original. Four years after that, the studio produced an origin story for Leatherface entitled (what else?) Leatherface.

Reception and box office returns weren't exactly stellar, which put an end to any further entries in the long-running film series. In the summer of 2018, Legendary got its hands on the film rights, and now you're all caught up.

The Tohills are best-known for their 2018 psychological thriller, The Dig. The movie follows Callahan (Moe Dunford), a convicted murderer who, upon returning home from a 15-year stint in jail, helps a haunted and determined man dig for the body of his dead daughter.

The man, who has been feverishly searching the swamp-like land around Callahan's farmhouse, just so happens to be the father of Callahan's victim.