Bloody Disgusting has uncovered a big time scoop to finish off the week, learning that Sean S. Cunningham (Friday the 13th) is not only working to get his own Friday the 13th reboot off the ground, but he’s also developing a reboot of a horror movie he produced back in 1985, House. In addition, Cunningham is producing an original film titled The Night Driver, working alongside writer Jeff Locker and director Jeremy Weiss on the various upcoming projects.
Of course, the catch with all things Friday the 13th is that the franchise was up until recently mired in legal issues, with original screenwriter Victor Miller now joining forces with Bryan Fuller (“Hannibal”) and A24 on a franchise prequel series for Peacock. That project is titled “Crystal Lake,” and Jeff Locker explains how a separate project could end up working.
Locker explains, “Sean hired me to do a rewrite on The Night Driver and after working closely with director Jeremy Weiss and him on that, we naturally got to talking about Friday the 13th and House. Jeremy and I pitched our dream reboot of Friday the 13th – with Sean’s blessing to keep developing it with him.”
Locker continues, “Obviously, the prequel TV series has reignited interest about a new film so we’re hoping the surrounding excitement will inspire both sides to come together and give us Jason on the big screen again for the first time in 14 years, but we also have a Plan B for a sequel to the original we think fans will absolutely love and should avoid any legal entanglements.”
As for the House reboot (check out some early artwork below!), Locker explains that the plan is to reimagine the 1985 movie; there’s also an “accompanying video game concept.”
“The House reboot is both an update and reimagining of the classic series, centering around the birth of a haunted house,” Locker explains. “Lots of great scares and howl-at-the-screen laughs, plus we’re bringing back a few of your favorite monsters from the original for some really fun but equally terrifying kills.”
“I’m working on the script as we speak and all I can say is I’m having a fucking BLAST!” he adds.
‘House’ (1985)
And then there’s The Night Driver, an original project that Jeremy Weiss will be directing. Chatting with Weiss, we were able to uncover a bit about that upcoming movie as well.
“The Night Driver is a film about an everyday salesman who regularly drives across the country selling pharmaceuticals,” Jeremy Weiss teases to Bloody Disgusting. “One night on a backroad he encounters a madman who seems to be following him, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. All he wants to do is make it home alive to his family at any cost; and by the time it’s over, he realizes that he’s either escaped the terror or it’s followed him home.”
Weiss continues, “This movie has been a true labor of love, and has taken about a dozen years to get to this point where things are starting to move very quickly. One of the things that originally attracted me to the project is that it’s a horror film that has similar sensibilities to some of the best genre films I grew up watching and loving, including Friday the 13th. To have Sean Cunningham return to the producer’s chair for this project feels like a dream come true. I had his films’ posters on my wall; so to be here so many years later with him producing is a pretty surreal experience.
“John Cork‘s original screenplay was really compelling and captivating, though Sean brought a lot of his own ideas to the table. Early on, he recommended a great writer named Jeff Locker to do some work on the script, and he and I hit it off really well. What came out of the collaborative efforts from the three of us is a very tight, intense and suspenseful script that really has a strong voice of its own. We’re currently finalizing our casting with some incredible name actors and have already begun pre-production to shoot in late spring/early summer.”
Weiss also touched upon the Friday the 13th and House projects.
“Working on The Night Driver with Sean and Jeff was such a great experience, by the time the momentum was picking up we were looking for what projects could be next in line. As a horror nerd through and through, Friday the 13th and House were naturally where I wanted to head next,” he tells us. “Jeff not only felt the same, but had very similar ideas with where to take both franchises.”
Stay tuned for more on Friday the 13th, House, and The Night Driver as we learn it.
