The battle to get Jason Voorhees back on the screen has been going on since the 2009 Friday the 13th remake made $90M worldwide. While that sounds huge, it didn’t perform all that well here in the States, and was pretty damn expensive to make. That’s why there were once rumors of a Paranormal Activity-styled, found-footage version in development. Now, as of Jan. 28, there are no longer any writers working on the next installment, but that doesn’t mean Jason is finally dead (he’s still targeting a return on May 13, 2016).

On this Friday the 13th, Platinum Dunes producer Brad Fuller spoke with Esquire (of all places) about the company’s plans for the return of Friday the 13th. And what was said will shock you.

One of my favorite things to do as a fan of the Friday the 13th franchise, which now has 12 entires, including the 2003 Freddy vs Jason, is to talk with friends and fans about the mythology behind Jason Voorhees. We know he drowned at Camp Crystal Lake. We know he somehow came back to avenge his mother’s death. We also know that he somehow aged tremendous through the first and second film. Us fans know this was a product of rushed sequels – Friday the 13th was the Saw and Paranormal Activity of the 1980’s – and that there is no clear answer (other than he becomes a Frankenstein monster in Jason Lives). But that doesn’t mean we haven’t thought about it (check out my epic April Fool’s Day joke in which I explore the idea of an older Jason Voorhees, who is actually Jason Jr.’s father.)

Fuller, and his partner Andrew Form, have also fantasized about Jason’s supernatural prowess, and may even explore this in the new F13:

“There’s always been this supernatural aspect to these movies. It defies logic that, you see Jason get killed in every movie, including ours, the 2009 one. And then he comes back and no one’s ever really investigated what that is. So that’s something that I think about a little bit. Like it is supernatural, but what is he? Those are the things that we’re toying with. Nothing has been decided. But those type of things: How does he always come back?

Personally, I think too much of a backstory on a killer could diminish how scary he/she is – the ridiculous Michael Myers Thorn arc in the latter Halloween films is a perfect example. Myers was the perfect killer until they gave him motive, turning him into a dog on a leash. This is dangerous waters, and I hope Platinum Dunes thinks this through…

Thankfully, they are in good hands. According to the article, The Signal and V/H/S director David Bruckner, who Platinum Dunes hired in April 2014 and remains on the project, planted the seed in Fuller’s head.

“You can talk to [him] about a scene that’s happening on page 18 and they can tell you what the ramifications are on page 82,” he says. “The the way he spoke about the movie was brilliant. His segment of V/H/S was so scary and unsettling and felt very real. So often, you see characters do things and you just roll your eyes and say, ‘How could they be so stupid?’ And in that movie I didn’t feel that one bit. That dread I is a very hard thing, a very hard emotion to convey on film and he did it so well. That spoke volumes to us.”

Bruckner got Fuller thinking about Jason’s unquestioned ability to die and reanimate in each Friday the 13th film, what he sees now as the franchise’s unique attribute in film history. “People traditionally want to understand exactly how and why things happen, and yet something so odd happens at the end of these movies and no one seems to question it. So people come to the movie with the expectation that the real villain will be killed and come back. And yet we never toyed with that notion.” If someone noticed, could Friday the 13th earn its own Dr. Loomis, the Halloween series’ in-the-know psychologist? Fuller approves of the comparison. “Those are the things that we’re asking ourselves. And we’ll see what comes of it.”

Lastly, comes the exciting news that the next Friday the 13th will continue the traditions at Camp Crystal Lake!

Fuller stressed to the magazine his desire to keep the core values intact. It will involve Jason Voorhees. It will involve kids having sex and smoking weed. They will be at camp.

And for those who keep asking me “when?,” Fuller plans to shoot Friday the 13th at the end of the summer because the weather is still nice and it’s easy to take over a camp for cinematic slaughtering purposes…

Read the full article at Esquire.

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