Movies
All Things ‘Friday the 13th’: Sequel for 2015, TV Series, ‘FvJ 2,’ and A Video Game?
In lieu of the new Friday the 13th box set release, Scott Neumyer caught up with Friday the 13th creator/director Sean Cunningham to talk all things Voorhees.
While there’s not a whole lot of new information, he reiterates a few nuggets about the franchise’s next installment, and urges fans to support both the F13 and A Nightmare on Elm Street franchises if they ever want to see Jason bout with Freddy again.
“There will be another Friday the 13th, which will probably get shot in the spring,” he tells Fearnet, reiterating the previously announced news of a sequel landing at Paramount Pictures. “If it all goes as I would like, it would then be released at the beginning of 2015.”
While both of the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street remakes performed well at the box office, the massive budgets mixed with huge weekend drop-offs have made it difficult for the studios to back sequels. While New Line/Warner Bros. is being a bit more trepidatious, Paramount is fast-tracking the F13 sequel. Point is, the odds of a Freddy vs. Jason sequel are being exponentially slim, unless of course fans start once again supporting these beloved horror icons.
“I think the chances are good,” he says for an eventual Freddy vs. Jason sequel, “for a couple of reasons, but I think it will ultimately be a marketing concept. Right now, I think the audience would have to start getting bored with the Friday… movie by itself or the Freddy movie by itself. I don’t think it’s going to happen in the next short period of time.” So when? “Conceivably in five years.” That’s like closing your eyes and throwing a dart at a dartboard.
“The other reason that I think it’s a possibility is that we spent so much effort in trying to find a way to get the two of them together in a movie that was action-packed and unpredictable that we had lots of material that was unused,” he continues speaking on the several versions of the script and multiple endings planned. “ It becomes possible to use it, or at least basic ideas or structural ideas that are already in place. We don’t have to start from scratch.”
Lastly, he talks about “Friday the 13th: Crystal Lake Chronicles”, a new series that’s being developed for television. “[I] think there will also be “Friday the 13th: Crystal Lake Chronicles,” which is sort of a “Smallville”,” he reveals. “We’ve been on-again off-again with that for years and there are a bunch of great stories to be told, but I think the way that it’s finally going to get delivered is not through a conventional television network, but through the Internet.” He continues speaking on potential release models: “I can’t tell you who the delivery people will be, but it won’t be the traditional route. There’s also the possibility of webisodes,” he explains before tossing out this juicy nugget: “…and I think we even have an idea for a terrific Friday the 13th video game.”
Could 2015 be the rebirth of Jason Voorhees? For horror’s sake, let us pray…
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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