Screenwriter Adam Marcus discusses the development of Texas Chainsaw 3D, including the loss of cannibalism and massacre sequences
2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the events of the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the 20th anniversary of the release of the remake, and also the tenth anniversary of an entry in the franchise that has less fans than those two just mentioned: Texas Chainsaw 3D (watch it HERE). Recently, our friends at Bloody Disgusting sat down for an interview with one of the film’s writers, Adam Marcus (who also happens to be the director of Jason Goes to Hell, which celebrated its 30th anniversary this year), and during their chat Marcus revealed that the movie lost its cannibalism due to the box office failure of The Midnight Meat Train and lost a couple massacres due to the lower-than-expected budget.
Directed by John Luessenhop and sporting a story credited to Stephen Susco, Adam Marcus, and Debra Sullivan, and a screenplay by Marcus, Sullivan, and Kirsten Elms, Texas Chainsaw 3D has the following synopsis: Decades ago, residents of Newt, Texas, long suspected that the Sawyer family was responsible for the disappearances of many people. When their suspicions finally were confirmed, vigilantes torched the Sawyer compound and killed every member of the family — or so they thought. Much later, a young woman named Heather (Alexandra Daddario) learns that she has inherited Texas property from an unknown relative, and she is unaware of horrors that await in the mansion’s dank cellar.
The film was released by Lionsgate, and Marcus said, “Lionsgate did not want (Stephen Susco’s) script because it was about cannibals. In Stephen’s defense, so was everything about Texas Chainsaw. That’s the point! But Lionsgate had put out The Midnight Meat Train and it was a big disaster, so they didn’t want any more movies about cannibalism.” So Marcus and his wife Sullivan came in to write a new, cannibalism-free draft of the script… and ended up writing something that would have cost $20 million to bring to the screen and would have featured two separate massacre sequences.
“(One) sequence we wrote took place in a hardware store, because Leatherface loses his chainsaw at the carnival when he throws it at Heather. There’s this great scene where he finds this giant, brand-new chainsaw, and there was a tactical squad of police officers who come in. It was this action scene in a hardware store, with Leatherface using everything at his disposal to dispatch these cops. … In the finale of the movie, Heather has been taken hostage by a dozen men who are left from the original siege at the house in the ’70s. Bubba has been killing the people who killed the Sawyers one at a time throughout the last 20 years; this is the last 12 people who were in on this thing. They’re all at a meat-packing plant, and the meat-packing plants in Texas are at the same place where all the animals are, so these cows are smelling their own death their whole life. We had a scene where Leatherface, with chainsaw running, is walking through a stampeding herd of cattle in 3D. We had 12 guys who were beating Leatherface with bats and chains, not two overweight dudes. When Leatherface gets his saw back and starts cutting through these 12 guys, it was amazing.“
Things had to venture away from Marcus and Sullivan’s script when only $8 million could be raised for the budget and they had a disagreement with a producer who wanted them to do free rewrites. When John Luessenhop was hired to direct, Kirsten Elms was brought in to handle the rewrites and set pieces got simplified. The decision to retcon the setting of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre so “twenty years later” could be 2013 was also made after Marcus and Sullivan left the project. Their script was firmly set in 1993 – and even mentioned Jason Goes to Hell being shown in the town theatre. That “Do your thing, cuz” line that star Alexandra Daddario wanted cut was also added later.
More details about the troubled development of Texas Chainsaw 3D can be found at the Bloody Disgusting link.
What do you think of Texas Chainsaw 3D? Do you think it would have benefited from being set in the ’90s, featuring cannibalism, and/or having a higher budget for massacre sequences? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
