Given the box office performance of Halloween – which debuted this past weekend with the second-biggest opening for an R-rated horror – it will come as little surprise to hear that Hollywood is looking to capitalise by dusting off its other old slash properties.
What may come as a little surprise however is NBA superstar LeBron James looks set to produce one of the first revivals, with Bloody Disgusting reporting that James’ SpringHill Entertainment is teaming with Roy Lee’s Vertigo Entertainment to reboot Friday the 13th.
The franchise has been embroiled in a legal dispute between original Friday the 13th writer Victor Miller and producers Horror, Inc. for the past year or so, with a court ruling last month that Miller was entitled to take advantage of a provision in U.S. copyright law allowing authors to reclaim the rights to material 35 years after publication.
The court ruling only granted Miller the rights to the first movie (with question marks over the adult Jason Voorhees, who didn’t appear until Part II), and only in the United States. Horror, Inc. is launching an appeal against the decision, and so its a little unclear from Bloody Disgusting’s report as to how SpringHill and Vertigo are getting around this rights situation.
SEE ALSO: Brad Fuller explains why Paramount shut down last year’s Friday the 13th
Regardless, hopefully this means there’s light at the end of the tunnel for Friday the 13th fans who’ve been without a new movie since the 2009 reboot, although given all of the false starts and difficulties over the past decade, it may be a little too early to start getting excited just yet.
