It’s been a while since there’s been a Friday the 13th movie, almost a decade in fact. The franchise last appeared on the big screen in the poorly-received 2009 reboot, Friday the 13th. After that, another reboot was planned for an October 13, 2017 release, but was abruptly canceled last year. Since then, it’s been nothing but crickets when it comes to Jason Voorhees, but now we’re finally getting an update on what’s going on with the troubled franchise.
Unsurprisingly, the reason why there appears to be no Friday the 13th film on the horizon comes down to complicated rights issues. Brad Fuller of Platinum Dunes, the production company behind both the 2009 reboot and the failed 2017 reboot, described to Arrow in the Head the web of rights issues that currently entangle the franchise.
“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. The fans reach out to us; Andrew (Form, fellow producer) 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. At the same time, there’s this on-going lawsuit with (original screen writer) 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. 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, [does New Line] 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.”
Unfortunately, it sounds like there won’t be any movement on continuing the franchise until all lawsuits are settled and the rights — which are supposedly reverting back to Warner Bros. soon — are sorted out, so it looks like we’re back to watching Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter on repeat for the time being.
