The Friday the 13th series, created by director Sean S Cunningham, has spanned twenty three years, ten movies and a crossover movie with the Nightmare on Elm Street series. The series antagonist Jason Voorhees, famous for his iconic ice hockey mask and machete, follows in a similar trend to that of Halloween's Michael Myers, mysteriously and inexplicably returning from fatal injury to relentlessly continue their campaign of terror. Voorhees recently made an appearance in the latest instalment of the Mortal Kombat video game series MKX, alongside sci fi legend the Predator.
The series was recently rebooted with 2009's Friday the 13th starring Supernaturals Jared Padalecki. The reboot condensed the narratives of the first four movies into one movie, updating the series for modern audiences but was panned by fans and critics for not bringing anything new to the franchise, despite this not being the movies intention. Despite negative opinion the movie remains the second most successful movie, financially, of the franchise behind 2003's Freddy vs Jason (pictured below).
Rather than inject fresh ideas into the franchise with a sequel to New Line Cinema's reboot Paramount Pictures have decided to, yet again, reboot the franchise, as previously reported. But recent news suggests that the initial script, written by Nick Antosca (Hannibal TV series) is to be rewritten by Aaron Guzikowski, with other reports suggesting that the director previously attached to the project, David Bruckner, has been relieved of his contractual obligation to remain onboard with the project as the new script is being written. Whether or not Bruckner will return to helm the movie, and whether or not Guzikowski's new screenplay, still in development, will feature any of Antosca's ideas remains unclear, although the reboot is still planned for 2017 release.
Sadly, it seems that The Friday the 13th series is joining an ever growing list (Hellraiser, The Crow) of horror franchise revival movies that are struggling to find any traction. One wonders if they should join the cinematic universe bandwagon and all join forces to create a slasher movie cinematic universe?
