'Hannibal' Writer Takes On 'Friday The 13th'

The next Friday the 13th film will shoot later this year, and is already set for a May 2016 release. But there's still work to be done on the script before the shoot date arrives, and now Hannibal writer Nick Antosca will take a crack at the return of Jason Voorhees.

THR reports that Antosca (Hannibal, Believe) will do a new draft; Richard Naing and Ian Goldberg wrote the previous draft.

The trade also mentions the idea of this film being found-footage, but that concept has been thoroughly debunked in the past months. There was a point where that was the idea, but it was scrapped. (Sure, the way things work there's always a chance that things have changed again, but our best info says the film is not found-footage.)

But there are other concepts that might still be in play. Producer Brad Fuller said just a month or so ago that the origin of Jason's immortality might be a concept for this new film.

There's always been this supernatural aspect to these movies. It defies logic that you see Jason get killed in every movie, including ours, the 2009 one. And then he comes back and no one's ever really investigated what that is. So that's something that I think about a little bit. Like it is supernatural, but what is he? Those are the things that we're toying with. Nothing has been decided. But those type of things: How does he always come back?

People traditionally want to understand exactly how and why things happen, and yet something so odd happens at the end of these movies and no one seems to question it. So people come to the movie with the expectation that the real villain will be killed and come back. And yet we never toyed with that notion....Those are the things that we're asking ourselves. And we'll see what comes of it.

Personally, while I can see some good story concepts coming out of a bit of explanation as to Jason's continued existence, I really don't need to know too much about that. The Friday the 13th movies are primarily from an era where each sequel just had to build on or ignore or try to deal with what the previous film(s) had done. There wasn't a big plan. Some story connectivity comes into play, but they're really just about Jason wreaking havoc. That's all we need to see. It doesn't have to be too complicated. In that respect, maybe Antosca can bring some of the insane spirit from Hannibal into this film.

The new Friday the 13th will open on May 13, 2016. David Bruckner will direct.