Freddy Vs. Jason (2003)

[Myerszilla]

Originally Posted by DudeClassicMan

Bah. It wouldn't be the first time new movies in a franchise broke back to previous continuity. H20 anyone? Fer cryin' out loud, even your precious TCM3D. So that's not the most accurate bitchfit to throw.

However, you're right about FVJ 2 being a crack pipe dream at this point. If anybody gave enough of a shit they'd have given enough of a shit to crank another one out five years ago.

Considering Jason's big success, & the overall love of the new rendition of the character, I don't think they'd be willing to go back to the previous continuity. If any series really needed a reboot, it was Friday the 13th, considering how terrible the later sequels got.

Regardless of what happens to Jason in the future, we probably won't be seeing zombie Jason for a long time, & I'm 99% sure they wouldn't ever go back to the previous series, where the continuity was already fucked up enough.

[DudeClassicMan]

Originally Posted by Myerszilla

Considering Jason's big success, & the overall love of the new rendition of the character, I don't think they'd be willing to go back to the previous continuity. If any series really needed a reboot, it was Friday the 13th, considering how terrible the later sequels got.

Regardless of what happens to Jason in the future, we probably won't be seeing zombie Jason for a long time, & I'm 99% sure they wouldn't ever go back to the previous series, where the continuity was already fucked up enough.

I was speaking more to the notion of Englund returning to the role of Fredro. As for Jason, it's just a big fucker in a hockey mask. Hell, Kane Hodder certainly wasn't built like a basketball player and the versus movie ignored that. Furthermore how did they cast that generic Pamela Voorhees? Ask the catering lady if she'd work for below scale?

Again, it's a big fucker in a hockey mask. And a versus movie. Why would they go through great pains one way or the other to tie into the '09 13th remake? Nobody buying tickets would give a fuck or be able to tell the difference before they parked their asses in theater seats.

I'm not saying it would be good but of course somebody could arbitrarily shit out another versus movie without giving a crap about acknowledging either of the recent reboots. As far as I can tell, neither one made a major dent the way the TCM remake did and even for people who hated Zombieween it at least forced you to have some strong reaction. The only reaction I can be bothered to muster for the 13th or Nightmare remakes is a half-hearted farting noise. That's how little either resonated with me.

[Myerszilla]

Originally Posted by DudeClassicMan

I was speaking more to the notion of Englund returning to the role of Fredro. As for Jason, it's just a big fucker in a hockey mask. Hell, Kane Hodder certainly wasn't built like a basketball player and the versus movie ignored that. Furthermore how did they cast that generic Pamela Voorhees? Ask the catering lady if she'd work for below scale?

Again, it's a big fucker in a hockey mask. And a versus movie. Why would they go through great pains one way or the other to tie into the '09 13th remake? Nobody buying tickets would give a fuck or be able to tell the difference before they parked their asses in theater seats.

That's bullshit, imo. It always matters who you put behind the mask. If you just think "put a big fucker in a mask" then that's when you get shitty performances. Just look at Don Shanks in Halloween 5. He was fucking awful as Myers, & George Wilbur wasn't much better. Just because Jason & Michael don't speak doesn't mean just anybody sould be cast.

[DudeClassicMan]

Originally Posted by Myerszilla

That's bullshit, imo. It always matters who you put behind the mask. If you just think "put a big fucker in a mask" then that's when you get shitty performances. Just look at Don Shanks in Halloween 5. He was fucking awful as Myers, & George Wilbur wasn't much better. Just because Jason & Michael don't speak doesn't mean just anybody sould be cast.

Box office; not critical appeal to us types. No average movie-going fucker ever bought a ticket to a Halloween or 13th movie, looked at the stuntman's name and said "ooh, he's good!" or conversely said to themselves "holy moley sheepshit that guy's a joke!"

Eh, I still believe there's much more nuance to Leatherface than the other two. Full disclosure; I don't give a flying fuck about any Halloweens besides the first two.

As it is, if somebody up and decides there's a cashcow to be milked in another FVJ movie they won't spend two seconds worrying about it being Haley vs. Mears. Now Mears was fine in the remake so it would only make sense to have him reprise the role but it wouldn't necessarily have shit to do with hopping on this great bandwagon of the '09 remake.

Ironically, I do realize the most value Hodder's name ever lent to anything is the Hatchet franchise. So that is one exception where a particular name playing the killer did mean something in the way of credibility. But as far as the big franchises go, the only names that ever meant shit in terms of box office are.......Englund. Then again, I think we can all differentiate between him being a quipster and those other mute behemoths.

Obviously this isn't a slight to the quality provided by Gunnar and Doug. But we're talking dollars here. Englund's the only guy who made himself a real name and money in a long-running franchise playing the monster. Gunnar is appreciated more as a craftsman and half the movies Doug was in came after Hellraiser dissolved into DTV excrement.

[Freddy_Lives]

Originally Posted by DudeClassicMan

Englund's the only guy who made himself a real name and money in a long-running franchise playing the monster.

This ^ = Sense.

Englund is a Karloff or Lugosi type because you instantly know the man behind the makeup and the iconic character they are known for.

Jason can be played by any decent 6'1 stunt-man. Sure did Kane Hodder do a great job absolutely he brought little nuances to heighten the character but anyone can watch film and get the movement down.

FVJ-2 will never happen though unless it's another cross-over which I never see happening.

[Myerszilla]

Originally Posted by DudeClassicMan

Box office; not critical appeal to us types. No average movie-going fucker ever bought a ticket to a Halloween or 13th movie, looked at the stuntman's name and said "ooh, he's good!" or conversely said to themselves "holy moley sheepshit that guy's a joke!"

Eh, I still believe there's much more nuance to Leatherface than the other two. Full disclosure; I don't give a flying fuck about any Halloweens besides the first two.

That's not the point. Just because a large portion of the audience doesn't notice who's behind the mask doesn't mean the movie studio has to be that ignorant as well. The villain is one of the important pieces of any story; in other words, regardless of who or what your villain is, if the person portraying him/her isn't any good, then you'll have a hard time selling people on the rest of the story, characters, etc.

That's the reason why the Shape, Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, & Freddy Krueger are famous in the first place, the first performance for each set the stage.

You think if they literally just cast any fucker for these roles they'd still be talked about?

As it is, if somebody up and decides there's a cashcow to be milked in another FVJ movie they won't spend two seconds worrying about it being Haley vs. Mears. Now Mears was fine in the remake so it would only make sense to have him reprise the role but it wouldn't necessarily have shit to do with hopping on this great bandwagon of the '09 remake.

They (New Line) won't risk making another crossover. There may be a few bucks in a sequel, but it definitely wouldn't be as profitable & as talked about as FVJ.

Ironically, I do realize the most value Hodder's name ever lent to anything is the Hatchet franchise. So that is one exception where a particular name playing the killer did mean something in the way of credibility. But as far as the big franchises go, the only names that ever meant shit in terms of box office are.......Englund. Then again, I think we can all differentiate between him being a quipster and those other mute behemoths.

That's somewhat true, but I think Mears has received the most mainstream work out of everyone to portray Jason. He's been in two or three Pirates of the Caribbean movies, Hansel & Gretel, Predators, The Hills Have Eyes 2, etc. Ironically, though, both men are the only two people under the mask who still frequently get work & are actually seen in movies. The others just faded into total obscurity.

It's always important when casting your villain, whether he's a quipster or a mute behemoth. I'm not saying we need an Oscar actor for a role like Jason, just someone like Mears who is actually dedicated to doing more than lumber around. Englund was smart because he promoted Freddy to the masses; any opportunity he had to do an interview, appear as the character, etc. he did it, so naturally Englund stands out among others.

Hell, Englund has a net worth of $14 million. That right there says it all, most people in this business are lucky if their net worth reaches $1 million or anything close.

Obviously this isn't a slight to the quality provided by Gunnar and Doug. But we're talking dollars here. Englund's the only guy who made himself a real name and money in a long-running franchise playing the monster. Gunnar is appreciated more as a craftsman and half the movies Doug was in came after Hellraiser dissolved into DTV excrement.

I agree with you on most of these points, I'm just saying don't cast anybody in the role. People like Gunnar, Doug, Nick Castle, etc. are the reason why I say make an informed casting decision, because it's always better to have someone who's hired to do a good job instead of being hired just to do a job.

[DudeClassicMan]

Originally Posted by Myerszilla

That's not the point. Just because a large portion of the audience doesn't notice who's behind the mask doesn't mean the movie studio has to be that ignorant as well. The villain is one of the important pieces of any story; in other words, regardless of who or what your villain is, if the person portraying him/her isn't any good, then you'll have a hard time selling people on the rest of the story, characters, etc.

Just because movie studios don’t have to be ignorant has never stopped them before. Besides you can’t use that specific word selling and ignore my point about box office NEVER being affected because folks caught wind of either one of these slashers being recast/miscast badly enough to single-handedly derail the movie. At some point it’s just rhetoric you’re dealing in if nobody actually gives a fuck who plays Jason or Michael besides purists and fanboys. Shit story, characters and kills have sunk far more movies than casting a stiff stuntman ever could.

Literally how many people would you guess even boycotted FVJ in protest of Hodder getting passed over? Five? Five potential ticket buyers in the whole world were that pissed over Jason being recast for FVJ? Shit, if my math is correct the box office for FVJ take outdid all four of Hodder’s 13th movies combined. Food for thought? Maybe nobody actually gave a fuck about Kane getting passed over. As long as Englund was Freddy, everything was peachy keen.

Of course, the real truth is nobody refused to buy a single ticket because they could still secretly enjoy the movie but come online and bitch about how starting center for your Camp Crystal Lake Mama’s Boys (get it?... Because new Jason was TAAAAALLLLLLL…) ruined the movie. And even the ones who were genuinely pissed needed to see the movie in order to be sincere about grudgefucking themselves over their boy Hodder losing the role. I’m not counting spiteful fuckers like me who go looking for an excuse to steal something they perceive as inferior product like TCM3D. But if it’s something I really want to see I either see it at the theater or wait for the DVD. Matter of fact, TCM3D is really the only big name thing I remember stealing all because I wanted to see what all the backlash was about for myself. It wasn't even all that atmospheric like the Platinum Dunes movies so I wasn't missing out on shit by not seeing it on the big screen.

In case you can’t tell by now I just don’t see slashers as this higher art form. In any case, I don’t really believe there were varying good-to-great Jason performances; there were just Jason performances. Case in point; why are Parts V and IX(Goes To Hell) considered the shit end of the stick? Because Jason wasn’t actually Jason in those sequels; not because the stuntman wearing the janitor’s uniform and hockey mask sucked. If people ever had major problems with the 13th franchise, it’s because when the idiot makers tried taking things in a new direction, they shit the bed big time. Shit, The Hidden wasn’t that obscure that they could just rip it off without anybody noticing; fucking dumbasses. Of course, they still think us the fans are the real dumbasses. That’s why they’d even try to pull something like that in the first place and still do pull shit like that all the time. TCM3D….COUGH….Alexandria Daddio looks damn good for a character that should be 38. COUGH.

To your overarching point though, fortunately the genre has been around so long and become so specialized that it is much more commonplace and practical for producers to have guys making careers out of playing imposing hulking slashers than it was during pretty much the entirety of the 80’s aside from Englund, Bradley and Hodder. But only one of those guys was really a hulking slasher, now wasn’t he? Freddy and Pinhead were characters; Jason and Michael were mere ciphers.

Then again, it’s still up to the individual whims of the director which is how Hodder was passed over for FVJ. For that matter, the very first Shape was just a random production assistant/co-writer Carpenter had been old chums with for a while since film school.

Originally Posted by Myerszilla

That's the reason why the Shape, Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, & Freddy Krueger are famous in the first place, the first performance for each set the stage.

You think if they literally just cast any fucker for these roles they'd still be talked about?

While the initial portrayals of all those guys were defining, how do you really know how many other guys would’ve been capable or more to the point incapable of getting the job done? Although I’ll concede it is pretty fucking weird trying to picture David Warner as a sniveling haughty taughty Krueger now. That’s one hypothetical portrayal that could’ve went right off the rails immediately descending into out and out camp from the get go which as we all know wasn’t what Freddy was about through the first three movies.

Point blank no, Warner wouldn’t have been a patch on Englund but I feel safe in saying the concept and character still would’ve spawned a highly profitable franchise. More than likely a guy like Warner may have gotten bored playing the same fucker every year and we still would’ve eventually ended up with Englund as the definitive Krueger anyways. Not that Warner was some A-lister above playing the same role over and over; but you only need to think back to how prickly Gunnar got at what he considered insulting offers to reprise the role of Leatherface. Hard to say and harder to know how a solid genre vet like Warner would've been as Freddy.

As for talked about? Warner was a distinct player already. But I guess the fact that they were actually casting for Krueger instead of just any old stuntman should hammer the point even further home that besides Leatherface, casting Krueger was much more of an actual process than Myers or Jason.

Furthermore, besides diehards, how many people really know who the fuck Nick Castle is and the fact is Hodder, the only name with real notoriety for playing Jason, didn’t even play him until the 7th movie (6th appearance of Jason.) So, there is no famous Michael Myers and the famous Jason only played him in parts 7-10. So I disagree with your slant on things; Kane wasn’t Kane until after he’d played Jason several times. Besides Englund and Bradley qualify as very verbal distinct villains; they did cast literally anybody to play Jason and Michael.

All in all, it’s just as easy to cast competent as it is hard to cast noticeably shitty when it comes to Jason and Michael; which is just another way of saying yes, almost any decent stuntman or nimble bouncer/ex-wrassler will do. To me, it seems like you have to be some kind of Jason or Michael purist to pick apart every rendition of either guy.

[DudeClassicMan]

Originally Posted by Myerszilla

They (New Line) won't risk making another crossover. There may be a few bucks in a sequel, but it definitely wouldn't be as profitable & as talked about as FVJ.

A buck is a buck. We ain’t talking about The Godfather here. There are no sacred cows in horror; or else a disingenuous piece of shit like TCM3D wouldn’t be allowed to be so lazy and careless with its own timeline all because silly ass little kids can’t tell the difference and it’s too much trouble to set your movie in the proper time period. Seriously, if the first entry in a new cycle is too lazy to even set the movie back twenty years what’s stopping somebody from making a FVJ that doesn’t pay any attention to the recent reboots?

As I’ve already said, I don’t think another FVJ will happen either. It doesn’t even seem to be a remote possibility. But weirder more random shit has happened. Certainly nobody would be dissuaded from making a particular versus franchise crossover movie because it upset the apple cart with any groundwork or foundation these recent reboots may have laid. For that matter, who’s to say somebody won’t get a wild hair up their ass and decide a one-armed Thomas Hewitt can drag his trusty chainsaw around? It’s just brand name franchise horror; not even superhero properties which themselves get rebooted all the time. Hell, weren’t they considering making a Justice League movie involving Batman but very obviously working outside the continuity of Nolan’s Batman?

Originally Posted by Myerszilla

I agree with you on most of these points, I'm just saying don't cast anybody in the role. People like Gunnar, Doug, Nick Castle, etc. are the reason why I say make an informed casting decision, because it's always better to have someone who's hired to do a good job instead of being hired just to do a job.

Again, Castle wasn’t an informed casting decision. He was a writer buddy of Carpenter’s. Hell, I believe he wasn’t even working on the movie. He just happened to be on the set. So he wasn’t really hired to do Myers at all; he was already standing around the set with his thumb up his ass as a spectator but Carpenter apparently didn’t think it was anything he couldn’t handle. There was clearly no process involved in casting him.

Agree to disagree on the difficulty of casting for Misters Voorhees or Myers.
The real difficulty is being so oblivious or lazy to cast somebody who’s actively bad as a slasher. Nowadays with guys who actively seek out and specialize playing these slashers? It’s all but impossible to cast a guy who is noticeably bad. So then it all comes down to fanboy nitpicking. Leatherface is a slightly different beast, of course, but even then it depends on what the particular movie calls for.

Look, Freddy, Pinhead, Leatherface, Candyman and other similar assholes are villains. Jason and Michael though? They’re just big dumb idiots in the trademark masks. Shit, Smith as Pluto required much more performing than Mears as Jason since like the original Leatherface Smith actually had to communicate a severly mentally stunted manchild instead of just a lumbering monster.

Finally, Myers was boring by Halloween IV anyways because the character was boring. Yeah, sure, Mikey, you came back to get your niece; not because the Aaaaaahkcods saw all that money Jason was making every year.

Halloween V? Really? That's your smoking gun? Wasn’t that an all around uninspired shit of piece movie? Eh, those Halloween movies hauled in about the same at the box office as those late 80’s 13th sequels. I mean Hodder may be the Jason but none of his movies ever broke 20 million at the box office. The movies had run their course by then which further drives home the point that whatever assholes under those two particular masks don’t matter as much as giving Jason and Michael something interesting to do.

I’m not being a dismissive dick when I state you don’t need a veteran like Kane to field a good slasher. It’s just common sense. If a big fucker can make a living as a stuntman in the first place I’m sure he can be physically subtle enough to be a competent Jason or Michael.