dierna
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# Posted: 15 Feb 2006 00:00
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http://news.yahoo.com/s....wMxNjk3
Hollywood testosterone king Michael Bay has been charged with breathing new life into Jason Vorhees and resurrecting the Friday the 13th franchise with a prequel.
Bay's production company, Platinum Dunes, will attempt to crank out the 11th installment in the hearty horror series for New Line Cinema by October--on Friday the 13th, natch.
Per the trades, Bay's company is scrambling to meet the pre-Halloween deadline. The script, by Mark Wheaton, is not yet finished and there's no immediate word on a director or cast.
The new, untitled chapter in the ongoing saga of the hockey-masked antihero Jason is purportedly going to be a prelude to Sean S. Cunningham's original Friday the 13th, which was released by Paramount in 1980. The horror classic followed the hacking up of various teens at Camp Crystal Lake. The low-budget gorefest grossed more than $40 million and spawned a franchise that eventually descended into camp with 1989's Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.
New Line bought the rights to the never-say-die slasher series in 1993 from Paramount and churned out Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday that same year. But it was far from being the "final Friday": The studio embraced the space age by launching the series into orbit with 2001's Jason X.
The studio then decided to pit two of its aging horror icons against each other, Jason and Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Krueger, in 2003's battle royale, Jason vs. Freddy. The face-off scared its way to $82 million in ticket sales.
New Line has been trying to figure out more ways to unleash Jason on moviegoers in the past few years. First, the studio toyed with the idea of another combo deal, with Ash from the Evil Dead movies joining the fray. But that fell through when filmmaker Sam Raimi decided to relaunch Evil Dead separately.
Then, New Line reached out to Quentin Tarantino to put his stamp on the Friday the 13th franchise. Tarantino also passed.
Now it's up to Bay and his Platinum Dunes to do for Friday the 13th what it did with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The production company's 2003 remake of Massacre exceeded expectations, raking in more than $80 million and spawning a prequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. The latter, starring
Jordana Brewster, is scheduled to unspool Oct. 6, a week before the new Friday.
Bay is seeking a return to blockbuster form after last summer's box-office bomb The Island. His hit credits include Armageddon, Bay Boys II, Pearl Harbor and The Rock
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