The iconic movie killer Jason Voorhees has been absent from the big screen for several years now, having last terrorised the counselors of Camp Crystal Lake back in 2009 for the Platinum Dunes-produced Friday the 13th reboot.
Another instalment has been teased/promised since 2010, only to be repeatedly pushed back as the rights to the franchise passed from Warner Bros. to Paramount, before Paramount ultimately decided to put the breaks on a planned October 13th 2017 release date and pull the plug on the project due to the poor box office performance of another of its horror releases, Rings.
While the future of the franchise remains up in the air at present, Platinum Dunes’ Brad Fuller has revealed to Joblo that the company is still determined to produce a new instalment, should the opportunity arise:
“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 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 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.”
Hopefully once the rights issues are sorted, we won’t have long to wait before Jason makes his triumphant return to the big screen.
