Plans for a 2017 Release of the Horror Franchise Have Been Abandoned
In an age where reboots seem to be the big thing, there may be signs that Hollywood might be second-guessing this strategy. This is probably good news to the many people who believe that the film industry has had a severe lack of originality as of late, but horror fans may be weeping a bit over this loss.
According to Variety, Paramount has decided to jump ship on a Friday the 13th reboot.
Originally slated for an Oct. 13 release date (yes, that would have fallen on a Friday), the film giant has decided to nix the project in lieu of a film starring Jennifer Lawrence, because clearly there’s a sheer lack of those in theaters.
Details are very sketchy regarding why Paramount has decided to abandon the project, but insiders believe it may be because of the disappointing opening of Rings, the reboot of the popular horror franchise, The Ring. Rings opened to a lowly $13 million, a far lower projection than expected for the $25 million film.
The film planned on being the 13th film in the franchise, which seems like the perfect selling point for a reboot or at least a sign of the coming of the apocalypse for numerologists who believe hockey masks are intrinsically linked to the destruction of mankind.
The original Friday the 13th launched in 1980 and came off the heels of another popular slasher, Halloween. The one-two punch of the two films catapulted the slasher genre into the stratosphere for years to come, with the two franchises spawning a number of sequels.
This would not have been the first time the Friday the 13th franchise had been rebooted. The film received a retelling in 2009 by director Marcus Nispel. The film was critically panned, but a box-office success, taking in $65 million domestically.
Maybe Paramount should rethink this?
Can’t believe they cancelled it just because a crappy franchise like rings was a failure in the box office. Friday the 13th is far more popular and doesn’t need high production costs, in fact the more overproduced the less scary it is.