No one’s going to argue that the Friday the 13th remake we got back in 2009 was great, but it was still an enjoyable ride for fans of the franchise and mostly harmless, even if it didn’t really offer up anything new or noteworthy. What’s particularly unfortunate about it though is that it may be the last time we see Jason Voorhees on the big screen. At least, for a while.
As you may be aware, the franchise is currently in a state of legal limbo. Long story short, Victor Miller, screenwriter of the original movie, is attempting to take back the rights. Basically, the worst case scenario would see all future Friday the 13th pics released in the United States having to be made without the character of Jason Voorhees. On the flip side, movies made under that banner overseas can include him but are banned domestically.
Of course, the past few years have seen more than a couple abortive attempts to breathe some life back into Jason’s mouldering bones, but they’ve all (appropriately enough for the character) wound up stuck in development hell.
Not only that, but the brilliant Friday the 13th video game proves that there’s still interest in the property. And so, you can probably imagine that the producers behind the remake must be pretty upset over the fact that they never got to put forth a sequel. In fact, Andrew Form of Platinum Dunes touched on that just the other day, telling Arrow in the Head the following:
“That one still hurts every day. We were a couple of weeks from filming on that one, Guzikowski wrote an unbelievable script, we found the camp… That one still hurts.”
As Form says, what’s particularly painful about this is that the project had a pretty great script. Back in October, we even learned a little about what was planned, with reports pointing to the pic taking place in the winter, when Camp Crystal Lake was frozen solid. Now how’s that for a haunting visual?
Other pertinent details include a scene in which Jason Voorhees ventures out onto the frozen Crystal Lake while hunting a rather unfortunate hockey player, which was surely meant to be the first of many blood-curdling kills involving the iconic, masked killer. What’s more, the film would’ve brought in a new cast of characters (read: hapless, horny teens), as opposed to continuing the story of Whitney (Amanda Righetti) and Clay (Jared Padalecki).
Sounds pretty awesome, right? All this just makes the cancellation of the sequel, and the current legal battles surrounding the franchise that much more upsetting. We’re hopeful that eventually, everything will get sorted out and Jason will be able to return to the big screen once more, but at the moment, fans shouldn’t hold their breath waiting for another Friday the 13th film to materialize anytime soon.
