Watching Osgood Perkins' low-key horror films THE BLACKCOAT'S DAUGHTER and I AM THE PRETTY THING THAT LIVES IN THE HOUSE, I never would have guessed that the director would have any interest in making a FRIDAY THE 13TH film… But as it turns out, it sounds like Perkins is a fan of the F13 franchise.
Appearing on Bloody Disgusting's Boo Crew Podcast to promote this weekend's release of his new movie GRETEL & HANSEL, Perkins revealed that
I would’ve happily been the guy to do FRIDAY THE 13TH again. … I would do that. I’d be thrilled to do that. That’s probably the one for me. I didn’t want to do HALLOWEEN, for instance. I felt like that had been done. Jason is my guy. Also, it’s the thirteenth one. Just call it '13' or something."
Perkins acknowledged that the rights to FRIDAY THE 13TH are "a real mess", so we shouldn't expect to hear about him chasing down the directing gig any time soon. The lawsuit between original FRIDAY THE 13TH producer/director Sean S. Cunningham and screenwriter Victor Miller over the U.S. copyright to that movie still hasn't been resolved, and the franchise is going to remain dormant until that's all figured out. The next court date for that issue is, appopriately, February 13th.
Perkins went on to mention that he had read the FRIDAY THE 13TH screenplay written by Aaron Guzikowski that nearly got made with Breck Eisner at the helm and Platinum Dunes producing a few years ago. Paramount Pictures pulled the plug on that one when it was just weeks away from filming.
The screenplay that I read was written by the guy who wrote PRISONERS, and it was good. It was sort of a remake of the original, and that’s what I’d want to do. Kinda remake the original, with the mom, and the camp, and all the stuff. And put it in the period. Yeah. Maybe."
Well, Perkins lost me there. I thought the Guzikowski script was all wrong, and I have no interest in seeing a remake of the original FRIDAY THE 13TH. I just want another Jason movie. If Jason is "his guy", why would Perkins want to make his movie about Mrs. Voorhees? Oh well. It's still nice to know that Osgood Perkins is into FRIDAY THE 13TH.