FEBRUARY 06, 2017 4:57pm PT by Borys Kit
'Friday the 13th' Reboot Shut Down (Exclusive)

The move occurs on the same day as the studio undated the movie, which was to have opened Oct. 13.
Paramount has put the machete back in the sheath.

With just less than six weeks go to before principal photography, Paramount had shut down the latest iteration of Friday the 13th, multiple sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.

The move occurs on the same day as the studio undated the movie, which was to have opened Oct. 13.

Platinum Dunes, the production company behind the movie, and Breck Eisner, who was to have directed the movie, received word earlier in the day, according to multiple sources.

The movie was in pre-production and, while not cast, heading into a production start in mid-March.

The exact reason for the move was unclear although one factor was the poor performance of the studio’s horror movie, Rings. That movie, which like, Friday the 13th, was to have restarted a horror franchise, cost $25 million and grossed $13 million over the weekend.

Sources say that execs quickly began second guessing Friday the 13th, believing it would have chased the same audience, although others point out the project is on the opposite spectrum of the horror scale.

A source close to Friday the 13th would only say that "the production was not ready to go at this date."

The project is a reboot of the 1980 slasher film that proved to be a low-cost, high-yield movie series for Paramount, spawning 11 sequels as it told the continuing blood-soaked adventures of Jason Vorhees, the seemingly unstoppable hockey mask-wearing killer of mostly hormonally-charged teens.

Corey Feldman Wants to Return in Friday the 13th Sequel

Tommy Jarvis is perhaps the second most favorite character in the Friday the 13th franchise. Yet, he's laid dormant in torment longer than Jason Voorhees himself, last appearing on the big screen in 1986's Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI, as played by cult favorite Thom Mathews. But it was 80s heartthrob and aspiring musician Corey Feldman that first embodied the character, crafting it as his own before moving on to such blockbusters as The Goonies and Stand by Me. Now, Corey Feldman is ready to return as Tommy Jarvis. But Friday the 13th rights holders refuse to commit to the idea.

Not that they haven't tried to make it work. Corey Feldman has had a few meetings about reprising his role as Tommy Jarvis over the years, resurrecting the character in what Feldman calls a sequel akin to what Jamie Lee Curtis did in Halloween: H20. In fact, a Jarvis Vs. Jason movie came very close to happening a few years ago, but Platinum Dunes decided it was better to completely reboot the franchise.

Now that producer John Carpenter has teamed up with director David Gordon Green and co-writer Danny McBride for an all-new Halloween that forgoes all past sequels when it comes to Michael Myers, Corey Feldman wants to do the same for Jason. He believes Friday the 13 Part 4 truly was The Final Chapter, and believes a bit of revisionist history is in order. He says this an an extended interview with Yahoo.

"I've long had this vision of doing our own kind of H20. Which I thought would be great. Everyone seems to have this huge crush on the Tommy Jarvis character. People really got, I don't know, into the concept about where Tommy is going. They tried to bring him back with three different movies. And every single one never panned out the right way. And yeah, that's because it's not Tommy Jarvis, it's a guy playing Tommy Jarvis. But let's get back to the roots. Same thing they did with H20. What would have happened if all those other movies were just some kind of bad nightmare. And the reality is that we last saw Tommy in the hospital room with his sister, and we think Jason is dead. You want to bring him back from that point, and continue the story thirty years later. Oh, my god, he still exists! That's the movie I think everyone wants to see. I actually pitched that. And we actually got as far as the writer, great guy, he was on board, and he really wanted to do this. He was excited. Barney Cohen, he was the original writer from Part 4. He wanted to come back. His concept was, if you're really going to do this, who else would you bring back? And I said, 'You have to go to Frank Mancuso, and get him back in the game.' As you know, he left the franchise years ago. And I think we should talk to Joe Zito, and get the original crew back together, and do it the right way. That was an idea we were floating. It all came down to the rights ordeal. And the reason there hasn't been another Friday the 13th movie in so long. Which is because it is owned by three different studios and five different properties. The problem is you have a franchise that is this is divided up by all this litigation."

Corey Feldman has long championed the idea of reprising his role as Tommy Jarvis. And says that New Line was very open to the idea of having this be the next sequel. He explains how that all went down.

"New Line came to me at one point and said, 'What do you think about the idea of bringing Tommy back?' And I was like, 'I'm all in! I've been waiting to do this forever! Let's go!' But that's when Platinum Dunes bought it. And they put out that remake. Which, I'll leave my opinion alone. But at the end of the day, I don't think the fans were too gungho about that. At the end of the day, they said 'Let's fix it.' And they wanted to fix it by doing the sequel that everyone wants to see. So it came back up again. But it was like, 'Nooooo! We're going to do a sequel to the reboot.' But that didn't happen. It got shut done.'

Corey Feldman also goes onto describe his casting session for Friday the 13th; The Final Chapter. He actually thought he was auditioning for a new Halloween movie, and at his young age, didn't realize or even know what a Friday the 13th movie was supposed to be.

"I didn't know who Jason Voorhees was when I killed him. I was like a ten year old kid. When I first got the script I was so excited. My mom told me I got an audition for the new Halloween movie. I was so excited because I loved Halloween. I watched them all. I walked into the audition. And I was like, 'Okay, wait, how come I don't see anything about Michael Myers in this script?' And they were like, 'No! It's Jason!' I was like, 'Just joking, I'll be right back.' And I had to go watch those movies."

Corey claims that his sequel idea is perfect, as Friday the 13th Part 4 is looked at as the definitive ending by a lot of fans.

"It really was the final chapter at the time. In fact, it really is the final chapter if you think about it. It was the seminal end of everyone's favorite bad guy. He really was dead and gone after Part 4. Then in Part 5 they had another guy pretending to be him. Then 6 and beyond becomes Frankenstein's monster, which is no longer Jason."

Asked about the sequels that followed Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Feldman takes a step out on glass with his comments. Especially with Friday 10, which shot Jason into deep space. While those might not be considered the best movies, Feldman himself has made quite a few direct to video stinkers that should never have been magnetized and placed on a VHS tape. Throwing caution to the wind, he says this anyway, hoping all his new Millennial fans don't have a VCR.

"Not would I only not go see it, I wouldn't even waste the footage on a video cassette. I feel that video cassette would be better used to tape Skinamax, or something. (Laughs) I'm just joking!

One reason Corey Feldman really wants to return as Tommy Jarvis is that he feels the character has never gotten any justice in the past few years. And he didn't especially like his replacement in future movies. He doesn't mention anyone by name, but he references the green eyed John Shepherd, who played Jarvis in Friday the 13th 5: A New Beginning. He probably knows not to pick on Thom Mathews, who rules as Freddy in Return of the Living Dead. Says Feldman.

"I liked Part 5. Not because I was in it. My part was very feeble. It's more about the fact that it's a murder mystery. I thought it was clever. They fact that it was a whodunit. Like, wow, if Jason is gone, who could be doing this? Maybe it's this guy, or maybe it's that guy. Maybe it's Tommy grown up. I thought that it was a cool concept. Can't say I'm particularly fond of the guy they got to play me, especially since he had green eyes. And I thought that was a huge oversight. As far as I know, you can't change your eye color halfway through your life."

You can visit Yahoo for the full Corey Feldman interview. There he talks about The Lost Boys and his time spent on the set of The Burbs, while also revealing that Lifetime is gearing up for a biopic on his relationship with fellow 80s actor Corey Haim called A Tale of Two Coreys, which should be a lot of fun. The current proposed Friday the 13th reboot, which was being called Camp Blood: The Death of Jason Voorhees has been canceled, and the slasher is currently sitting dormant. Hopefully enough fans rally around Feldman and his idea, and eventually we get to see Jason Vs. Jarvis. Who wouldn't want to watch Feldman bust some of his signature dance moves on the hokey mask wearing killer?