Hellraiser Director Weighs in on Whether He’d Return to Friday the 13th (Exclusive)

It’s been 13 years since audiences have gotten a Friday the 13th film and, due to legal litigation over the rights to the series, we likely won’t be getting a new installment anytime soon, with director of the new Hellraiser David Bruckner being one of the filmmakers whose name was announced to direct an iteration of the project. The director recently confirmed that, even if the rights were squared away and legal issues were resolved, he knows how much bigger the franchise is than just his vision and that he’d be thrilled to see what a new filmmaker does with the property as opposed to holding onto resentment over not getting to tell his story. The new Hellraiser debuts on Hulu on October 7th.

“I think for me, personally, it would be hard to find my way back into that now just because it’s like the actor’s approach to an audition, you have to just walk away at a certain point and put it behind you,” Bruckner confirmed to ComicBook.com. “Also, I spent a lot of time there. I worked with some wonderful writers, I think, and I’ve changed. Those ideas aren’t interesting to me quite the same way they were with the work we did in particular, but I’m a fan of the franchise.”

He continued, “I think if you’re working on IP, whether it be Hellraiser or Friday the 13th, this doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to everybody. This is not the ultimate Hellraiser movie, it is one Hellraiser movie. There will be others, there will be other Friday the 13th films. They will figure it out, the IP is too valuable. The fans want it too much. So no, I’ll be the first person in theater to figure out what they did. Of course, I’ll think a lot about what we had, but no, and it goes the same for any of the stuff that we work on; I’m game, as long as I get to keep making stuff that I’m passionate about, I’ll be as grateful as I can be.”

Bruckner was revealed to have been working on the project in 2014, though he reportedly left the film in 2015. After a revolving door of other filmmakers joined and left the project around this time, the 13th film in the franchise was officially scrapped indefinitely in early 2017. 

The current status of the franchise is in limbo as original director Sean S. Cunningham and original writer Victor Miller litigate who owns the rights to the series, the title, and the various components of the narrative, such as Jason Voorhees and his signature hockey mask.

In the all-new Hellraiser, a young woman struggling with addiction comes into possession of an ancient puzzle box, unaware that its purpose is to summon the Cenobites, a group of sadistic supernatural beings from another dimension.

Stay tuned for updates on the future of the Friday the 13th franchise. The new Hellraiser premieres on Hulu on October 7th.  

Would you like to see Bruckner develop a Friday the 13th film? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!