The next Friday the 13th is back at square one. But before Prisoners‘ Aaron Guzikowski was recently attached to do his own page one rewrite, “Hannibal’s” Nick Antosca took his own stab at the mythology of Jason Voorhees.
He speaks with Necronomicast about being hired by Paramount Pictures and Platinum Dunes to move away from found-footage, which was the original plan when Southbound‘s David Bruckner was attached to direct.
“[Paramount and Platinum Dunes] had a found-footage draft, and then I came in and did a page one rewrite [to] rethink, to some degree, making it not found-footage,” he explains as to what he was hired to do when Bruckner was already aboard as director. “I worked really closely with him. His idea from the first meeting was he wanted [Friday the 13th] to really have likable, real characters, and to be set in the 80’s.”
In a recent interview Bruckner stated that he a coming-of-age monster movie in the spirit of Dazed and Confused.
Antosca confirms this direction adding that “Jason shows up and shereds everybody.”
“And that’s what we did. That was the plan and we had a great time. [It was] an incredibly fun and rewarding creative experience,” he continued. “Awhile later I heard they decided not to do it in the 80’s. I’m bummed they didn’t do the draft [but] I’m more bummed that David is not on the project [anymore].”
This is where Antosca rips out my heart and cuts it up with a machete: “When I was working on Friday, I went back and watched the Paramount ones, multiple times, because that was the spirit we wanted – starting with the 80’s Paramount logo and all that.”
Say what?! Kill me now. It sounds as if they really had a fun and unique new direction to the franchise. Now, I’m worried we’re going to get yet another cookie-cutter interpretation of the original that’s more like a direct remake than something with a rejuvenated spirit.