Platinum Dunes Talks Friday The 13th Sequel

Last week I spent some time on the set of the remake for A Nightmare on Elm Street. I can't really say anything about that movie just yet, but I can share with you a few things that the Platinum Dunes dudes had to say, especially about the second Friday the 13th movie. Though it may not be officially green-lit yet, we can't see why it wouldn't happen soon, and why it wouldn't come out next year, on August 13th (a Friday) to be precise.

So, check below for the full lowdown on everything we got from them, and check back for more info on A Nightmare on Elm Street soon.

Q: You guys are obviously working on other projects, so what's going on with the sequel to Friday and other movies?

Andrew Form: We're hopeful that's the next movie. There's a nice date coming up next summer that we hope everyone can see another Friday the 13th on.

Q: There's a script in development?

Brad Fuller: Yes. With Shannon Swift. So, for 2009 I think that it's this and the sequel to Friday the 13th and then beyond that, I don't know. A lot of you guys have been talking to us for years and you know we don't develop that far beyond what we're doing.

Q: You guys have been talking about developing more originals and I'm sort of interested looking at Drag Me To Hell, which is about as good an original horror movie as you're going to see in theaters. The fans didn't really turn out for that. Do you sort of look at that and at the state of how original horror does and say to yourself "maybe it is better to do remakes."

BF: At the end of the day, and I'm sure you love Drag Me To Hell. Sometimes our taste is not in sync with the public and I don't think it's something that's specific to original or non-original horror. I think part of it is a release date and part of it is something that conceptually a lot of kids can get behind, and you know what I mean when I say a lot of kids. We don't do remakes because we're not doing original stuff, we are presented with opportunities or pursue opportunities and thus far, what has come in front of us is what we're doing. We're not avoiding... like we have a script with Scott Cozare, which I hope we're going to do at Paramount, which is an original script, which is unlike anything ever. It was originally our Rosemary's Baby movie, which obviously we're not doing that. But, it came from a meeting with Scott there and that's an original thing, but we don't look at it in the same way that you do. That it's original horror versus remake, do you know what I mean? I think that the audience judges each one on it's own merit and at the end of the day... my sixteen year old son didn't think that Drag Me To Hell was that scary. But, he doesn't have the knowledge that we all have. It's hard to evaluate that movie as it's own without knowledge of the work that Sam Raimi has done before, and see where he has come. In a vacuum, kids aren't responding to that movie, but I mean that movie is 94% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics love that movie. I think that critically it's a huge success and financially it's just not the same level of success.

Q: Is it possible that we may see a Friday film in the snow?

BF: How'd you hear that?

Q: Well, you were talking about shooting maybe later this year.

AF: Oh, so maybe a snowball fight. (laughs)

BF: Listen, I think that for that movie, which is a totally different feeling (from A Nightmare on Elm Street), we want to have a fun movie. If we're going to do another Friday the 13th, you know we were having a blast on the set; we want to have fun. We also want to bring things they haven't seen before and one of the things that they haven't seen before is Jason in the snow. They haven't seen that before.

Q: Can you see it in 3-D?

BF: It's certainly been talked about. The financial ramifications of doing a movie in 3-D on a budget that size, 'cause it's not like they're going to say to us "yeah well why don't you make a sequel and here's twice as much money," it doesn't go that way. Our movies are virtually all the exact same budget and I guarantee you if we make that movie it'll be the same budget as the original. And we'll say "hey do you want to do it in 3-D" and they'll say "yeah let's talk about it" and then when they see that it's six or seven million dollars more they'll probably opt out unless something that we are not expecting happens. I suspect it will not be in 3-D, although we'd love to make a 3-D horror movie. We'd love to do it; they just don't throw that money our way.

Q: My Bloody Valentine did very well in 3-D and you have The Final Destination and Avatar and a lot in 3-D.

BF: Here's the other problem, we don't have a release date, we don't have a green-lit movie. Let me be very clear, 'cause last time we were talking about this movie it got back to Toby Emmerich that I said that this movie we're on right now was green-lit before it was so let me veer clear. Friday the 13th Part 2, we don't have a script, it's not green-lit, and we have no idea what's going to happen. If it gets green-lit and we're able to mount it in a reasonable amount of time, we would hope the movie would open on August 13, 2010.

Q: And it will take place in the snow.

BF: (laughs) No, I can tell you this, the movie itself will not take place in the snow. I don't want to sit in Winnipeg with him for two months in the snow. We did that once, I don't want to do it again. (laughs) What was your question again?

Q: I was asking about 3-D.

BF: I just don't think... I don't know. I mean what do you think?

AF: I don't know if we have the time to be ready for it. If it does at all happen, it'll happen quickly because the film does need to shoot before the winter does come and 'cause the date would be summer next year. So, we've talked about how much time to get ready for the 3-D and then how much post time you need which is a lot longer than a non-3-D movie to get it into the theaters and then financially. But I mean from day one, when we started talking about the sequel we talked about it being in 3-D.

Q: Are you already talking to the cast members? Jared Padaleckii?

BF: We talk to them all the time. They're great friends of ours.

Q: Acknowledging that there's no script and no greenlight for Friday 2... are you considering taking Jason more over-the-top in terms of kills, in terms of his physicality and what he does?

BF: If we're vulnerable on [the first film], it's that people thought our kills weren't clever enough, so whatever we need to do to make those kills seem clever in the second film is what we're going to do. I don't think that turning him into a space-going astronaut would be the direction that we're going to go in... (laughs)... That's a criticism that really goes to my heart, that I feel like I've failed the fans if those kills aren't original or that they're not unique or grisly. You can read the comments and see where the truth is, and you can see as a producer where maybe that kill could've been better or we could've done something more clever here. However we can bring more clever kills to the second one, that's what we're going to do.

Q: From your point, why did Friday the 13th open like that?

BF: We did love the movie. It felt like the movie came out at a time where there were a lot of very down horror movies and upsetting horror movies and we had a great date, obviously and the movie, it was a party. You know, we went to theaters. We watched it. It was a party in the theaters. Audiences were screaming at it and loving it. It was one of those fun horror experiences and I think that for audience members who were looking for the same DNA as the original Friday the 13ths they were very satisfied with that and for people who were looking to pick us apart, and there are a couple of those. This will come as a shock to you, but there are. (sarcasm) They were disappointed with it. But at the end of the day, I think it's a really fun horror movie and it's not so grisly that it becomes fetish-y and eliminates a good portion of the audience.