In an interesting turn of events following Wednesday’s news of a partnership between horror hounds Platinum Dunes and Paramount Pictures, it seems that the rights to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series will trade hands from Michael Bay’s group to the house that Saw built, Twisted Pictures.
The deal is currently being sealed, and the series that Tobe Hooper birthed with his 1970s classic will soon become “a 3D film … scripted by Stephen Susco (The Grudge). Carl Mazzocone, Mark Burg and Oren Koules will be the producers.”
This sounds like a horrible idea, in my opinion. The Saw series went off the deep end a long time ago, and it seems insulting to trivialize what was once a powerful horror series with what many essentially see as a gimmick.
This is, by strange forces of coincidence, the second time that the series has traded hands two films into its chronology: Tobe Hooper made the original Texas Chainsaw as well as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 before it was snagged by New Line Cinema to contort the series into an attempted “killer series” ala A Nightmare on Elm Street. Now, two pictures into Platinum Dunes’ remake series, a major shift is happening again.
Let’s hope this one proves more successful, and that Michael Bay’s horror production house isn’t interested of ridding itself of horror franchises in general.
