There's been an eerie silence at Crystal Lake since the 2009 Platinum Dunes Friday The 13th, which was followed only by legal tangles and creative problems. Since then there's been talk of a new TV series, but the 13th film in the franchise is now moving forward again too. David Bruckner, as previously reported, is directing, and the film now has a new screenwriter in Hannibal's Nick Antosca{
Last we heard, Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (Freddy Vs. Jason) had written a "great - better than the first" screenplay; there was talk of 3D and/or found footage; and there were hints that Jason would be swinging his machete in an environment we'd never seen him in before, namely the snow...
None of that is now the case (well, the snow isn't impossible), with the thrust of the new take apparently being a final answer to the question of why the killing machine Jason Voorhees is so supernaturally unstoppable.
The Halloween series tried something similar in the '90s and ended up with its own killer, Michael Myers, being the result of a pagan cabal called the Cult Of Thorn. And then everyone got embarrassed about it and ignored it again for H20 and subsequently. So the precedent isn't great there. But it's interesting that nobody's yet using the word 'prequel' either: while we're investigating Jason's roots, we're not, like the next Texas Chainsaw film, necessarily going back in time to do it.
Bruckner previously directed the scary-funny Amateur Night segment in** V/H/S**, while Antosca's work away from Dr. Lecter includes episodes of MTV's Teen Wolf and the 2012 horror The Cottage starring David Arquette.
Friday The 13th Part XIII (or whatever it ends up being called) is currently due out on May 13, 2016. Which is a Friday, obvs.