Paramount killed the 13th Friday the 13th movie. Bloody Disgusting and The Hollywood Reporter both speculate that the poor performance of The Ring sequel, Rings, spelled doom for the reboot, which was on-track for a Oct. 13 release date after years of tangled development.
The rights now revert back to New Line Cinema, barring any complications from the ongoing legal battle over the the rights to the series, with original Friday the 13th screenwriter Victor Miller attempting to reclaim ownership (does it drive anyone else nuts that the THR writeup on the lawsuit uses a picture of Jason Voorhees copycat killer Roy Burns?).
Maybe that’s not such a bad thing?
The now-dead Friday the 13th project had a few assets in its favor, most notably screenwriter Aaron Guzikowski, whose lauded Prisoners placed him a cut above your typical Friday the 13th scribe.
There were also warning signs, particularly the focus on Jason Voorhees’ origins (a description producer Brad Fuller refuted to iHorror) and family, never a fertile ground for horror sequels.
But most of all, the Friday the 13th reboot would be colored by the Platinum Dunes house style pioneered by producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form. Platinum Dunes was founded by Fuller, Form and Michael Bay in 2001. For a while, they were all about horror movie remakes, producing 2003’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and remakes of The Amityville Horror, The Hitcher, A Nightmare on Elm Street and 2009’s Friday the 13th.
The results have been mixed, to be generous. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has its defenders (and there’s no denying the intimidating scale of Andrew Bryniarski’s Leatherface), but their other reboot efforts were mostly disastrous, particularly A Nightmare on Elm Street.
The Platinum Dunes’ Friday the 13th was actually pretty good, though. It had a slightly altered and tremendously effective take on Jason — transforming him from a lumbering moron into a canny survivalist with underground tunnels from which he’d pop up like a human graboid. Still, despite making nearly $100 million on a $15 million budget, it wasn’t considered a new franchise starter for the dormant series.
The new Platinum Dunes’ Friday the 13th could have been a disaster, particularly looking at how rushed the production schedule has been after years of dead ends and false starts. But even a best-case scenario would have been bracketed by the Platinum Dunes’ aesthetic: music video editing, interchangeable young people and scenes set to chode rock.
New Line Cinema, to whom the rights will revert, has a far more diverse track record (though they did co-produce four of the Platinum Dunes remakes, including Friday the 13th). In addition to the music video schlock that’s come to define the past decade of studio horror, New Line also produced The Conjuring and… well, that’s about the only exciting thing. Their Final Destination series is fun, but too knowing a tone for Jason and Friday the 13th. Lights Out sucked. The Gallows sucked.
But what we could be getting is a genuine refresh of Friday the 13th that won’t feel stamped from the Platinum Dunes horror movie reboot mold. There may even be a higher chance at disaster now. But there’s also the dizzying possibility of the larger studio pulling in some exciting talent.
We’ve swapped the safe — but likely mediocre — known for a tantalizing unknown.
