Kim Henkel, the co-writer of the 1974 original, had options. A lot of them. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre rights auction drew interest from five to eight studios and streamers, with names like Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw, Oz Perkins and Neon, and even Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan circling the property. Sony made a serious run at it. And Henkel picked A24.
His reasoning wasn’t vague. In a statement reported by Bloody Disgusting, Henkel said A24’s track record with genre films and their willingness to work with boundary-testing artists made them a compelling choice. That’s someone protecting a franchise he helped build 50 years ago.
What A24’s Track Record Told Henkel
The auction, administered by Verve (who’ve held the rights since 2017), wasn’t just about money. It was about pitch. Studios and filmmakers had to make a case for what they’d actually do with the property. And A24’s case, apparently, was the strongest.
Look at their horror résumé, and it makes sense. Hereditary. Midsommar. Talk to Me. The recent Undertone, which turned a micro-budget acquisition into a $9.3 million opening weekend. These aren’t safe horror movies.
They’re director-driven, tonally specific, and they trust audiences to keep up (which, honestly, is the same thing the 1974 original did on a fraction of the budget). A24 is also already deep in legacy horror IP with Crystal Lake, the Friday the 13th prequel series. They know how to handle a franchise without flattening it.
Henkel’s choice signals something specific: he wanted creative latitude over commercial safety. A bigger studio might have offered more upfront, but A24’s model gives filmmakers room to be weird. For a franchise that started as a $140,000 independent film shot in the Texas heat, that alignment matters. It also helps explain why Sony, the other reported finalist, didn’t close the deal. Sony wanted to buy the rights outright; A24’s pitch came packaged with a producing team and a creative direction already in place. When the competition is between ownership and vision, Henkel picked vision.
The Barker Factor and What Comes Next
The director’s attachment only reinforces the strategy. Curry Barker made his first feature, Milk & Serial, for $800 and put it on YouTube for free. His second film, Obsession, premiered at TIFF’s Midnight Madness and got scooped up by Focus Features for over $15 million. He’s currently shooting Anything But Ghosts for Blumhouse. The trajectory is steep and fast, and A24 was reportedly among the finalists who tried to acquire Obsession before Focus won.
Barker will write and direct what’s being described as a reimagining of the original property. The project is separate from the A24 television series being developed by JT Mollner with Glen Powell executive producing. Both projects share producers Roy Lee and Steven Schneider through Spooky Pictures, which means the film and TV sides are connected at the production level even if the stories aren’t.
No casting or plot details have been announced. That’s fine. The franchise has been through nine installments across multiple studios, most recently the 2022 Netflix sequel that was pretty widely panned. The real story right now isn’t what the next movie will look like; it’s why the franchise landed where it did. Henkel had the entire industry knocking, and he opened the door for the company least likely to play it safe.