Legendary Among Those Bidding For Texas Chainsaw Massacre Rights

Legendary Entertainment is reportedly among those studios fighting for the rights to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise. Bloody Disgusting reports that the rights for the franchise are heavily in the mix with a pitch to develop a new film franchise as well as a television series.

The film series has fallen on hard times in recent years, despite essentially kicking off the modern slasher remake trend with the 2003 Marcus Nispel-directed reboot. 2013’s Texas Chainsaw 3D was a disappointment financially with $47.2 million worldwide on a $20 million budget, while 2017’s Leatherface went straight to video with a DirecTV-exclusive release. That said, the name value of the franchise has a lot of appeal for studios, and it’s hard to ignore that the reboot did $107.1 million on a budget of just $9.5 million.

Lionsgate and Millennium Films were the last studios to hold the franchise rights, but lost them late last year due to the delay in releasing Leatherface.