The success of Halloween has prompted all kinds of buzz involving classic horror franchises and now another iconic slasher could be headed back to the big screen, courtesy of one of the NBA’s biggest stars.
LeBron James and his SpringHill Entertainment studio will reportedly co-produce a reboot of the Friday the 13th franchise, bringing Jason Voorhees and his terrifying hockey mask back to theaters.
According to The Hollywood Reporter (and first reported by horror movie news site Bloody Disgusting), James’ studio and Vertigo Entertainment, the producers of the recent record-breaking It adaptation, are currently in talks to produce “a new iteration telling of the gory happenings at Camp Crystal Lake.” There’s currently no writer or director attached to the project, as it is still in early stages of development and some legal issues regarding the rights to the Friday the 13th franchise still need to be resolved.
A long-running court case recently gave original Friday the 13th screenwriter Victor Miller the rights to his screenplay and most of the characters introduced in it, as well as the U.S. rights to the franchise. Given that Jason Voorhees wasn’t actually introduced in his iconic hockey-mask wearing persona until the sequel, however, there are some issues that will need to be ironed out regarding who owns which elements of the series.
If the reboot overcomes these legal hurdles and decides to restart the franchise entirely instead of going the sequel route like this year’s Halloween, it will be the second time Friday the 13th has started over from the beginning of the series’ timeline. A 2009 reboot — also titled Friday the 13th — received poor reviews but managed to earn $92 million worldwide on a $19 million budget.
The original 1980 film, directed by Sean S. Cunningham, followed a group of teenage camp counselors who were stalked by a mysterious killer.
Prior to the 2009 reboot, the original film spawned 10 sequels, including the 2003 crossover movie Freddy vs. Jason, which pitted Jason Voorhees against Nightmare on Elm Street killer Freddy Krueger. A 2002 sequel, Jason X, even sent the titular killer into space for a bloody sci-fi chapter of the series.
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