Blumhouse executive Ryan Turek reveals the studio wants to bring back the Friday the 13th franchise after their work on the Halloween sequel trilogy and the upcoming The Exorcist: Believer. The upcoming Exorcist movie will jumpstart a new trilogy co-written and directed by David Gordon Green and ignore past franchise installments, save for the original. Green also helmed Blumhouse’s Halloween trilogy, which rebooted the franchise after the 1978 original and ignored all other sequels beyond that.
In an interview with Inverse for The Exorcist: Believer‘s release, Turek revealed which franchise the studio would like to get their hands on to revive next, and it’s none other than Friday the 13th. The executive explains that he would love to go back to the basics of what made the franchise so memorable in the first place while also expressing his love for the series as a whole. Check out what he said on the matter below:
Jason [Blum] and I are definitely in agreement that Friday the 13th is the thing we would love to get our hands on. I really want to go back to the basics. You don’t need too many ingredients for a Friday the 13th film. You need summer camp, you need campers, and you need Jason Voorhees in a mask. Listen, I’ve gone on the record saying Halloween is the ultimate slasher film for me. That’s my favorite slasher film of all time. But Friday the 13th as a franchise is one that I just bow down to. I just love everything about it. And if we were able to live in both worlds, like we do with Halloween, then to be able to live at Crystal Lake for a while would be so incredible.
A Friday the 13th Revival Has Been A Long Time Coming
Blumhouse has successfully rebooted Halloween to commercial success, even if the critical reception for Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends wasn’t on par with the 2018 reboot. And while the studio is waiting to see if the same success will be replicated with Green’s Exorcist trilogy, a revival of Friday the 13th has been planned for quite some time. A24 and Peacock have already announced a prequel television show titled Crystal Lake, although news of a film reboot has been relatively quiet.
Since the release of the 2009 Friday the 13th movie, both Warner Bros. and Paramount have wanted to release another franchise installment but have had difficulty getting it made. When Warner Bros. relinquished rights to the franchise to Paramount in 2013, another movie was in development with Platinum Dunes and had several directors attached to the project until it was ultimately canceled in 2017. Since then, there has been interest in reviving the franchise, but no solid answers on whether or not audiences will get another Friday the 13th movie.
But with Blumhouse seemingly interested in reviving Friday the 13th, things could change quickly. The studio has produced numerous successes at the box office and would be better positioned to produce said revival that critics and audiences would love. Should The Exorcist: Believer prove somewhat successful at the box office, it would be easy to convince the current owners of the Jason Voorhees-fronted franchise to collaborate with Blumhouse on a potential revival of one of horror cinema’s most iconic franchises.
Key Release Date
The Exorcist: Believer
Release Date:2023-10-06
