Friday The 13th Producer Sheds Light On Sequel Delay

Producer Brad Fuller has spoken about the hold-up on making a sequel to the 2009 ‘Friday the 13th’ reboot, and given some hints about the direction the 2016 film should take.

Speaking to Esquire in an interview published (when else) this past Friday - 13th February - reboot producer Brad Fuller, co-founder of production house Platinum Dunes, opened up on the reasons behind the delay. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it mostly comes down to money.

- Friday the 13th & Paranormal Activity Sequels Delayed
- Can Neill Blomkamp Revive Alien?
- Halloween To Be ‘Recalibrated’

While the 2009 ‘Friday the 13th’ reboot did good enough business on release to immediately prompt talk of a follow-up, it seems the success of the same year’s ‘Paranormal Activity’ gave studios Warner Bros and Paramount cold feet. After all, why spend around $20 million on a horror movie that earns under $100 million at the worldwide box office, when a film made for a fraction of that grosses almost twice as much? (Although Fuller does not address this, it seems logical to assume that this is why Platinum Dunes infamously discussed making a found footage ‘Friday the 13th,’ an idea which did not go over well with fans.)

When Platinum Dunes’ ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ reboot did similar business in 2010 (made for $35 million, grossed just under $116 million), Fuller says “(the) phone kind of stopped ringing.” Interestingly, this lead Fuller to make contact with the guy who “stole our business,” ‘Paranormal Activity’ producer Jason Blum, ostensibly to help Platinum Dunes figure out how to make horror on lower budgets - and as a result the two production houses teamed up on 2013’s ‘The Purge’ and its 2014 sequel, as well as ‘Ouija.’

Further complicating matters for ‘Friday the 13th’ was the rights situation, as the franchise was for some time co-owned by Paramount Pictures and the Warner Bros subsidiary New Line Cinema, the latter of which opted to step away from horror around the turn of the decade. The situation would only be resolved when Paramount sold their project ‘Interstellar’ to Warner Bros, partly in exchange for the ‘Friday the 13th’ rights.

- Jason Momoa In Talks For The Bad Batch
- Keanu Reeves & Christina Hendricks Join Neon Demon
- The Guest Director Reveals Next Film

As for what we can expect of the next ‘Friday the 13th’ movie, Fuller insists it’s a project he’s especially passionate about (“Some movies you do for some reasons and some you do ‘cause you just love the source material. And truly this is something that we all love here”), and suggests this new film may explore the nature of the undead serial killer Jason Voorhees from a different angle.

"There’s always been this supernatural aspect to these movies. It defies logic that, you see Jason get killed in every movie, including ours, the 2009 one. And then he comes back and no one’s ever really investigated what that is.

"So that’s something that I think about a little bit. Like it is supernatural, but what is he? Those are the things that we’re toying with. Nothing has been decided. But those type of things: How does he always come back?"

Fuller continues, “People traditionally want to understand exactly how and why things happen, and yet something so odd happens at the end of these movies and no one seems to question it. So people come to the movie with the expectation that the real villain will be killed and come back. And yet we never toyed with that notion.”

This writer for one would debate that point. I’m not sure an explanation of the killer’s nature and/or where he get his powers has ever particularly helped any horror franchises; indeed, in some cases - think the later ‘Halloween’ movies, or indeed Platinum Dunes’ ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ reboot - it’s arguably made the films worse. Still, I can accept that Fuller and co want to break new ground in what has unarguably been a hugely formulaic series. That said, it must be stressed that formula is key to the charm of ‘Friday the 13th,’ and films which have broken with series convention - notably ‘Part V: A New Beginning,’ ‘Jason Goes To Hell’ and ‘Jason X’ - have tended to meet a lukewarm response from fans.

Fuller goes on to express great confidence in their chosen director, David Bruckner: “His segment of ‘V/H/S’ was so scary and unsettling and felt very real. So often, you see characters do things and you just roll your eyes and say, ‘How could they be so stupid?’ And in that movie I didn’t feel that one bit. That dread is a very hard thing, a very hard emotion to convey on film and he did it so well. That spoke volumes to us.”

Fuller also confirms the film will not be found footage, and will take place in the classic setting of Camp Crystal Lake. The standard series quota of gory deaths, gratuitous nudity and badly-behaved college kids seems certain - beyond that, we can but wait and see.

The still-untitled ‘Friday the 13th’ movie (the 13th in the series, funnily enough) is set to hit cinemas on 13 May 2016.

- Sam Witwer For The Crow?
- Somnia Set For US Release
- Cusack & Jackson Reunite In Stephen King’s Cell

Picture Credit: Paramount/Warners, WENN