Following the disappointment of the 2017 prequel Leatherface, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise is looking to the future with a reboot produced by Don’t Breathe director Fede Alvarez. According to Alvarez, the new movie will be a direct sequel to Tobe Hooper’s original 1974 masterpiece that features an older Leatherface.

“It is a direct sequel, and it is the same character,” Alvarez told Bloody Disgusting. “It is old man Leatherface.” It’ll be interesting to see how being nearly half a century older will affect the way Leatherface kills. In the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, he was able to chase Sally for miles through the woods. But in his old age, he might not be able to keep up. Alvarez elaborated on the filmmakers’ approach to the reboot: “Everything is classic, old-school gags. A lot of the approach that we had with Evil Dead – never VFX, to do everything on-camera... Vintage lenses... It’s very similar to the original film.”

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Alvarez is no stranger to revitalizing dying horror franchises. His 2013 Evil Dead remake terrified fans who’d become disillusioned with the series’ increasing reliance on slapstick comedy. Retconning long-running slasher franchises’ interminable sequels to follow on directly from the classic original has become a new trend since David Gordon Green rebooted the Halloween series in 2018. Green himself has signed on to do the same thing for The Exorcist.

The movie was originally set to be directed by brothers Ryan and Andy Tohill, who made their directorial debut with The Dig (not the Dig that was just released on Netflix), but they were fired a week into production and replaced with David Blue Garcia, who started from scratch. No specific plot details have been revealed, but the Tohill brothers’ original version was reported to revolve around a San Francisco businesswoman who takes her younger sister on a business trip to Texas, where they’ll have to contend with the iconic chainsaw-wielding cannibal serial killer. Chris Thomas Devlin penned the script for the new reboot.

The previous Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequels have been a mixed bag. The original’s director, Tobe Hooper, returned for the first sequel, which bizarrely veered into full-on slapstick comedy, and since then, the sequels have doubled down on the grisly, excessive violence. The last one to get a wide theatrical release was Texas Chainsaw 3D, which raked in a paltry $47 million at the global box office in 2013. With any luck, Alvarez and his team will be able to turn it around.

There’s no official release date for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel yet, but the poster suggests the plan is to release it sometime in 2021. Of course, with the future of movie theaters still uncertain in most parts of the world, it’s tricky for studios to make definitive box office plans.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) is now available on Amazon Prime Video.

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Source: Bloody Disgusting