Despite our reservations about a new Friday the 13th film, we were somewhat excited to see more from the man in the hockey mask. A new film had been in the pipeline for a while over at Paramount, with rumours circulating about it being a reboot, a sequel and, perhaps most interestingly, found footage. Alas, it all came crashing down when the film was cancelled last year. But, why? Brad Fuller now sheds some light:
“I think there was concern about the rights looming at that point. Paramount was concerned if they made that movie and the rights were not available… if you are going to make that movie, you want to be able to ride it for more than one or two movies. That didn’t exist in this rights structure. We were going down the road to make the movie, but, at the end of the day, economically and/or creatively, they didn’t want to make it.”
“There’s this clause in the rights that the rights revert back to New Line. As that date became closer and closer, Paramount would have made one Friday the 13th movie and then New Line would have benefited if the movie was great. Then, New Line could have followed it up with subsequent movies. It put Paramount in a very tough position to go ahead and actually make the movie, and then us to reap the benefits if it was successful beyond that particular film.”
In addition to the complications with the rights to the franchise, the cancellation came down to the poor performance of the sequel Rings.
“That was also a time when sequels were not doing as well. We’re all kind of reactionary when you are making something. You are looking for evidence that tells you that what you are making is right on the cutting edge of where society is going, and you certainly don’t want to make something that feels like the timing is wrong. I wouldn’t say the whole thing fell apart because of [Rings]. I certainly think that played into it.”
Hopefully one day we’ll be able to see Jason Voorhees make a killing, but it’s certainly not going to be anytime soon.
Words: Jessy Williams (@JessyCritical)
