After years of legal limbo and sticky rights issues, it looks like Friday The 13th might finally be getting another modern reboot, courtesy of, err, basketball legend LeBron James.
Variety reports that James’ SpringHill Entertainment is in talks with Roy Lee’s Vertigo Entertainment to acquire the rights to the franchise, which have been fought over for going on 10 years now – with original writer Victor Miller recently winning a court case against original director Sean Cunningham. This is not exactly surprising news considering the Halloween sort-of-reboot just posted the second biggest opening weekend in October history.
If the deal goes through, James’ production company has a first deal with Warner Bros., so that would be a likely home for the project. That in itself is intriguing since they produced the 2009 remake of Friday The 13th through New Line Cinema. That remake (back when the term was fashionable) was also produced by Michael Bay and posted a then eye-popping opening in February of $40 million. Despite talks of a sequel, no follow-up ever emerged.
Arguably, Jason Voorhees has always been a bit of a Michael Myers knockoff. With that said, during the 1980s, there was no bigger or more popular visage of horror than the dude in the hockey mask with a machete. A potent image, Jason was arguably the first slasher monster who became the hero of his own franchise; the one audiences actually wanted to stab people. Such an approach might be more difficult to pull off in this decade, but a savvy producer (or basketball player) could be able to find a path back to Crystal Lake.