Spooked Paramount Drops Horror Films, Sony Jumps Into The Game
After this week’s lackluster box office results from Rings, it seems Paramount is spooked. The $25 million budget horror film only drew in $13 million it’s opening weekend.
Paramount now has pulled the plug on the reboot of Friday the 13th. Usually when a film is removed from a schedule, it means a new release date is being considered, but not in this case. This comes only six weeks before principle photography was set to begin. Breck Eisner was tapped to direct and the film had a release date of October 13, 2017. The current reboot would have been the thirteenth in the franchise, which consists of the original ten movies, the 2003 crossover Freddy vs Jason, and the 2009 reboot.
Also removed from the Paramount schedule: World War Z 2, the follow-up to the 2013 hit. The sequel was set to have star Brad Pitt return, with an announced release date of June 9, 2017. However, film production never began to meet that deadline after director J.A. Bayona left the project last year to do Jurassic Park 2. Since then, no replacement has been made, even though there was a rumor in August 2016 that David Fincher, who worked with Pitt on Se7en and Fight Club, was wanted. An insider has stated that the studio is hoping to release the film in 2018 or 2019.
However, the opening in Pitt’s schedule now has started rumors the actor will appear in the futuristic scif-fi epic Ad Astra, which will be directed by James Gray. Gray wrote the script with Ethan Gross (Fringe). Pitt would play a slightly autistic space engineer who travels through the solar system to find his missing father who disappeared on a one-way mission to Neptune to find signes of extra-terrestrial life. Pitt produced Gray’s latest film, The Lost City of Z, which premiered at the New York Film Festival and was picked up by Amazon Studios.
Also on a positive note for horror films, Sony has picked up the script for a supernatural thriller, /reddoor. Written by Teddy Tenenbaum and Minsun Park, it’s about a young journalist who discovers the new app game he is reviewing can kill a player once they’ve entered the game world. It is being touted as a mashup between The Ring and the upcoming thriller from Steven Spielberg, Ready Player One. Barry Joesphson, Liz Bassin, and Jim Weaa will produce.
