Why won't he DIE?
By Brandon Wolfe
Another Friday the 13th just came and went, yet there’s been no sign of the date’s symbolic representative, Jason Voorhees, onscreen in six years, leading audiences to wonder whether if the hockey-masked galoot will ever again emerge from the depths of Development Hell. But in an interview with Esquire, Platinum Dunes producer Brad Fuller reveals that not only are there currently plans to get Jason back into theaters, but there might be an actual creative angle in the works for this notoriously autopiloted franchise.
"There's always been this supernatural aspect to these movies,” Fuller says. “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?"
While adding that the series might also bring in a recurring character analogous to Donald Pleasance’s Dr. Loomis in the Halloween series, Fuller also speaks to the desire audiences have to understand why Jason has these mysterious, unexplored abilities.
"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. Those are the things that we're asking ourselves. And we'll see what comes of it."
Fuller also reveals that the new film is expected to begin shooting later this year for a 2016 release and will NOT be done in the found-footage format, as initially reported. Also, it will have a budget lower than the $20 million spent on the 2009 reboot.
Explaining away the long-standing mysteries or back stories of iconic characters is generally an undesired and unfulfilling exercise in reboots and sequels, but the Friday the 13th franchise is so historically spare and creatively barren that delving into Jason’s supernatural nature (which Jason Goes To Hell once attempted to do, to little success) is admittedly more interesting than just another glossy spin on familiar slasher tropes.
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