TERRIFIER 2 Director Wants To Helm a FRIDAY THE 13TH Movie, Has Ideas For a Revival, and Has Talked To Producers
The director of the hit indie horror franchise Terrifier, Damien Leone, is interested in directing a Friday The 13th movie, and he’s got some ideas for how to revive the franchise. The Friday The 13th franchise has laid dormant since 2009, and I’ll be honest, I don’t really need to see the franchise revived. The film series had a solid run, and I’d be fine if we never saw Jason come back from the dead… again, to murder people.
Over the years there have been attempts to get the franchise off the ground again, but it’s had some rights issues that need to be figured out. Blumhouse is the most recent production company that talked about wanting to get their hands on the franchise, but Leone would also like to have a crack at it. If anyone is going to make a brutal Friday The 13th movie, it would be Leone. Those Terrifier movies are insane.
During a recent interview with /Film, Leone talked about his desire to make a Friday The 13th movie and talked about how he would approach the franchise:
"I've been on record for quite some time now saying if I could ever remake one slasher film, it would be 'Friday the 13th.' Jason was always my favorite slasher since I was a little kid, and I think that there's a way to ... I mean, my approach would be to keep it in the '80s, honestly. I would have it take place in the early '80s. I would try and make him as scary as possible because I feel like that's something they kind of lost as the movies went along. You just start getting too comfortable with these villains and you need to be scared of them again."
Yeah, if this franchise was revived, recapturing the spirit of those original films is a must, and I also like the aspect of setting the story in the 80s. Leone also believes that the violence in the movies shouldn't be stylish and fun, but "brutal". Which makes sense for the franchise! The filmmaker just wants to recapture the vibe of the original horror movies. He then goes on to say that he’s had meetings:
"[B]elieve it or not, I've gotten to talk to some people who are execs who are in charge of that franchise. I think I'm still a little too obscure on that Hollywood list of people that they would approach to direct that film."
The thing is, he would kinda be the perfect director for it, but he understands that for filmmakers like him, it’s a long shot. He said:
"I've been told, 'Listen, everybody and their mother wants to make that movie. It's a long list.' So unfortunately, I don't think I'd get to make it now, but maybe when they reboot it in the next 20 years, I'll be able to take a crack at it. But that would be a dream project and so would 'A Nightmare on Elm Street.' [...] I think there's a lot of interesting stuff and scary stuff you can do with Freddy that we haven't seen in a long time. The hard thing about 'Nightmare Elm Street' is just finding that new Robert Englund. That would be the hardest thing, of course."
I’m sure that one day Friday The 13th will be revived again, but when it is, it will most likely be made by a creative team that thinks they know what the audiences want in the franchise, but in reality, they have no idea. Leone would give us a scrappy, gritty, brutal film that is reminiscent of the earlier movies in the franchise.