The new ‘Friday the 13th’ film has been shut down just weeks before shooting was due to begin.
Iconic hockey mask wearing psychopath Jason Voorhees was due to be resurrected for a reboot scheduled for release in October 2017 – 47 years after the franchise first began.
Breck Eisner had been hired last year to direct the slasher flick from a script by Aaron Guzikowski with Brad Fuller and Andrew Form back on board to produce after bringing back Jason in the 2009 movie.
But Paramount Pictures has now halted the project just as the cameras were due to start in March. The studio has also pulled the ‘World War Z’ sequel from its release schedule.
No official reason has been given but a source connected to the movie has told The Hollywood Reporter that "the production was not ready to go at this date".
It has been speculated that the motivation for stopping ‘Friday the 13th’ is the poor performance of ‘Rings’ at the box office with the ‘Ring’ reboot only taking $13 million in its opening weekend compared to its’ $25 million budget.
The fresh ‘Friday the 13th’ film – which would be the thirteenth movie made in the franchise – had already been delayed once because Paramount Pictures wanted it to be a found footage fright fest only to be told by producers Fuller and Form that it had to be a POV horror with viewers experiencing the story from Jason’s perspective as he stalks his victims at Camp Crystal Lake.
Speaking about the disagreement in direction, Fuller – who also produced ‘The Purge’ series with Form – said: "We always wanted to go back to Crystal Lake and make another one. There were so many obstacles to surmount to get to where we are today. I’m not going to bore you with all of them … Then there was an execution issue. At one point, the studio wanted us to make a found-footage version of that movie and that was deeply concerning to us because we didn’t think we could execute the movie in the right way if it was a found-footage movie."
Fans of Jason will still get a fix in 2017 as the ‘Friday the 13th’ video game is being released and will allow you to control the killer or one of the camp counsellors trying to escape his murderous clutches.
New Friday the 13th film shut down
