Paramount's latest Friday the 13th movie is slowly moving forward, and the studio has just hired a new writer to take a pass at the script.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount has hired Nick Antosca to write a new draft of Friday the 13th. Nick Antosca is no stranger to horror, serving as co-producer on NBC's Hannibal. He has also written for Teen Wolf, Believe and Last Resort and has published five books including The Girlfriend Game.
We've previously reported on this new Friday the 13th, which will be another reboot and not a continuation of the 2009 remake. However, it is still coming from Platinum Dunes, the same studio that produced the 2009 movie. That movie did pretty well, grossing $91 million on a $19 million budget, so it's not totally clear why the studio is choosing to reboot the franchise again instead of just doing a sequel to that movie.
It was rumored for a long time that the movie would be found footage, but that apparently isn't the case anymore, as we previously reported. Platinum Dunes also evidently plans to treat the movie well, giving it the budget it deserves and not limiting the creators to the micro-budget of films like Paranormal Activity and The Purge.
Brad Fuller hinted that the movie might explore the idea of Jason's immortality, trying to figure out just how he keeps coming back again and again. The previous draft was written by Richard Naing and Ian Goldberg. The film will be directed by David Bruckner, known for directing the "Amateur Night" segment in the horror anthology V/H/S.
This will be the 13th film in the Friday the 13th franchise, a series which has been through some pretty ridiculous highs and lows since it began in 1980. This remake won't be the only new Jason property we have to look forward to, either. As we previously reported, a Friday the 13th TV series is in the works which will take place in a world where the Friday the 13th movies exist but are based on a true story. The show will follow the "real" city of Crystal Lake and the people who live there, haunted by the legend of Jason which was turned into a Hollywood franchise.
The Friday the 13th reboot is scheduled to be released on May 13, 2016.