The Walking Dead, move aside, Jason is about to take Atlanta! FRIDAY THE 13TH In an interview with Collider about the new FRIDAY THE 13TH film, Platinum Dunes producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form dropped some explicit details about how the production process is going and gave us a peek at their schedule. The reboot (or whatever the hell it is) will be casting in December, with shooting to commence in Atlanta in early Spring.
Check it:
In terms of fun, making [the 2009 film] was so fun. The cast was great, we were in a great setting, everyone got along. We had a lot of fun making that movie and we always wanted to go back to Crystal Lake and make another one. There were so many obstacles to surmount to get to where we are today. I’m not going to bore you with all of them but for a long time, there was a rights issue between Paramount and Warner Bros. Then there was an execution issue. At one point, the studio wanted us to make a found-footage version of that movie and that was deeply concerning to us because we didn’t think we could execute the movie in the right way if it was a found-footage movie.
No, Jason is a POV movie. So, it was very hard to wrap our head around how you would do a Friday the 13th that was found footage, knowing that we really need the Jason perspective of watching. We didn’t want to break the DNA of that. We also battled: do we do a sequel to the original? Do we pick up where we left off with Jared and Amanda at the end of the movie? Somehow, that didn’t find a home. So, it’s been eight years. It will be eight years since we made the last one. I’m here to say that we found the location. We have found the lake, we have found the camp. We found an amazing script by Aaron Guzikowski. Breck Eisner is directing the movie. That movie is shooting in early Spring.
So, we have an Atlanta location (which is right around where they ended up shooting Part 6, JASON LIVES), an actual summer camp (which already beats out the remake, which barely acknowledged the camp itself), and they also went on to say that "a period piece," though they did not specify what period we're talking. Presumably, this will be Jason stalking once again in the 80's, but who knows what screenwriter Aaron Guzikowski has cooked up.
I'd be down with a medieval FRIDAY THE 13TH, no question. Hey, if we're rebooting the property why not uproot it entirely and slam it down anywhere? I'd love to see Mssr. Voorhees mowing down 50's greasers at a sock hop. It's unlikely that would ever happen, but we'll just have to wait and see what director Breck Eisner has in store.
The main point is, we actually have a specific schedule now. Perhaps the pressure from the impending lawsuit over the rights to the franchise is forcing the studio to actually make decisions. Thanks, Victor Miller!
Check out the video of Collider's interview below!