'Friday the 13th' News: Latest Update Reveals Horror Franchise's Future in Limbo Despite Interest
Those who were hoping to see Jason Vorhees spill the blood of his helpless victims in a new "Friday the 13th" installment are in for a disappointment.
Brad Fuller and Andrew Form, producers from Platinum Dunes, a.k.a. the studio that has been working on a new film for a few years before Paramount Pictures dropped the project, revealed to Rooster Teeth that even they are left in the dark as to why the production company discontinued the project.
"We never got a clear answer from Paramount as to why that movie got shut down. I think at the end of the day that administration, which is no longer there, didn't see horror as a viable part of what they were doing. Also they were coming off of Rings and that didn't help," they explained.
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"For studio heads who are not fans of horror there's not a tremendous amount of glory in it other than the financial. A lot of these studios want to make big movies with big movie stars and that administration could never get excited about it. I think the rights now have reverted back to New Line," they went on to say.
Fuller said that is not so "simple" to make a movie if they wanted to. The desire and interest to do a "Friday the 13th" installment are simply not enough to get the project going. This is especially true with the long-running horror franchise currently caught in the middle of a conflict regarding the rights, which bounce back and forth between studios right now.
He went on to talk about the issues on the "Friday the 13th" film rights, which Warner Bros. owned before they Paramount Pictures acquired them for a couple of years before landing back to Warner Bros.
There is also this on-going lawsuit with Victor Miller, the original "Friday the 13th" writer, who took to the court, invoking copyright laws to reclaim ownership over the material, which the actual owners at the moment argue he does not have control over because he developed it as work-for-hire.
The lawsuit, no doubt, adds a new layer of challenge in making a new "Friday the 13th" movie, so unless that's settled, no blood will be spilled from Vorhees' killing spree.
Currently, the "Friday the 13th" project is at the hands of New Line Cinema, so it will be up to them to get that project going. Fuller and Form are willing to "drop what we're doing to make that movie."
Fuller, who is a big fan of the series, having watched the first films when he was younger, described being part of the "Friday the 13th" franchise as "a dream come true." For now, however, he does not have a "clear answer" to offer about its future.
That being said, "Friday the 13th" will be in limbo unless all these issues are ironed out. That means it might take a long while before Jason Voorhees returns to the big screen.
