Hey guys! Horrorella here...
The upcoming FRIDAY THE 13th film has just nabbed a new screenwriter. THR reports that HANNIBAL producer and writer Nick Antosca has boarded the film and will be penning a new draft of the screenplay.
The film has undergone a number of ideas and changes over the past few months, including a found footage approach that has since been scrapped. Presently, the plan is to take the story back to a classic summer camp setting, and also spend some time exploring the Jason mythos.
Said producer Brad Fuller in a recent interview with Esquire:
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?
For better or worse (opinions vary), one of the staples (and charms) of the FRIDAY the 13th series has been the fact that the sequels were barely strung together, with little or no though given to an overarching mythology or set of rules. Jason comes back whenever there is a new movie, and little explanation is ever given as to why and how. And really, nobody cares that much, because we are all there just to see how many camp counselors, vacationers, townspeople and sometimes New Yorkers Jason can take out within a 90-minute runtime.
It's certianly not a negative, and is one of the reasons fans enjoy the series as much as they do. But it does represent unexplored plot territory.
HANNIBAL has received solid critical acclaim since it permiered in 2013, so the addition of Antosca could be a really positive thing. The film will be directed by David Bruckner, who co-directed the great THE SIGNAL and the "Amateur Night" segment of V/H/S. The new film definitely has some talent behind it, so it will be interesting to see what direction they take it in.
