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New Line Cinema has struck a deal with Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes and Ted Field's Radar Pictures to distribute a new reconceptualization of the seminal shocker "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," which the studio re-released in 1983, in North America, with distribution rights in Italy. The announcement was made today by Toby Emmerich, New Line's president of production, and Mark Ordesky, president of Fine Line Features.

Along with Ordesky, senior vice president, acquisitions and co-productions Guy Stodel, and business affairs attorneys Erik Ellner and Craig Alexander, were instrumental in finalizing negotiations on behalf of New Line. CAA's Adam Krentzman and attorney Robert Offer represented Bay and Platinum Dunes in the negotiations. David Boyle, Radar's executive vice president of business and legal affairs, negotiated on behalf of Radar. Attorney Stewart Brookman negotiated on behalf of Next Entertainment.

Based loosely on true events that inspired both the original "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and the Oscar-winning "The Silence of the Lambs," the new film will center around a handful of friends who become isolated in the company of a deadly clan of cannibals. The original film not only struck a deep chord with the youth culture of the time but revitalized the horror genre, influencing virtually all of the successful horror franchises that followed it from New Line's own "Nightmare on Elm Street" series to "The Blair Witch Project." The new film will be produced by Bay and Michael Fleiss of Next Entertainment, with Ted Field of Radar Pictures and Bay's Platinum Dunes partners, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller, executive producing. Next's Jeff Allard is also an executive producer.

Scott Kosar will adapt the screenplay.

The agreement also gives New Line an option on the next genre film from Platinum Dunes, which Bay formed as a venture with Radar Pictures to produce reasonably budgeted commercial films. It also continues the studio's relationship with Radar Pictures.

"This story presents an amazing opportunity to reconfigure the genre with a fresh take on a horror legend," Emmerich said. "Our goal is to make a genuinely frightening film without relying on visceral shocks to raise the heartrates of the audience." Ordesky added, "For a group of average people far from civilization, a darkened room or a deserted house can be the most terrifying place on earth."

SOURCE: New Line Cinema