Former Producers Offer 'Friday the 13th' Franchise Update

Friday the 13th fans had a lot to be excited for in 2017, as a new chapter in the long-running [...]

Friday the 13th fans had a lot to be excited for in 2017, as a new chapter in the long-running slasher series was reportedly heading into production. Sadly, the film received regular delays before ultimately being pulled off the release schedule completely, signaling that fans would have to wait even longer before seeing Jason Voorhees back on the big screen. Brad Fuller and Andrew Form, who served as producers on the 2009 remake, recently expressed their disappointment of that scrapped sequel and shared their frustrations at how we shouldn't expect to see a new Friday the 13th anytime soon.

"One of the biggest heartbreaks of the last couple years was that we were about to make that movie and it fell apart. That still hurts," Fuller shared with Arrow in the Head. "The fans reach out to us; Andrew doesn't really engage because he's not on Twitter, but I am and I hear from the fans and that's all they ask about. We get asked about that more than anything else. Fans think it's so simple, that if we want to make the movie we can go make it, and that's just not the case. There are rights issues; originally, Warner Bros. owned the rights, then Paramount had them for a couple of years, and now I think the rights are reverting back to Warner Bros."

Given the very public squabbles over rights to characters in the world of superhero cinema, fans are much more aware of how ownership over a character can cause roadblocks in the development of films. Studio rights are only one element of Friday the 13th snags, as the original film's writer is engaged in a legal battle over ownership of the story.

"At the same time, there's this on-going lawsuit with Victor Miller. If there's a lawsuit hanging over the rights, it's problematic, you can't really make the movie until that gets settled," Fuller confessed. "And now the movie is at New Line, and we've made a lot of movies with those guys, but that's not our home studio anymore. So the question is, do they want to make the movie with us? If they want to make that movie with us, we will drop what we're doing to make that movie. We had such a great experience making Friday the 13th, it was a dream come true to watch those movies as a kid and then be a part of it. So I don't really have a clear answer."

Form echoed these sentiments, admitting, "That one still hurts every day. We were a couple of weeks from filming on that one, [Aaron] Guzikowski wrote an unbelievable script, we found the camp... That one still hurts."

Fans will have to stay tuned to discover any progress on the future of the Friday the 13th franchise.

Would you like to see the team from the 2009 remake stay involved in the series or start with fresh filmmakers? Let us know in the comments!

[H/T Arrow in the Head]

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