This will probably come back to haunt me if I give the Friday the 13th remake a good review (and when I give The Unborn a middling review that is still more positive than many of my colleagues*), but I like Brad Fuller and Andrew Form, the guys who run Platinum Dunes. For some horror fans their names are killing words, but I liked The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake (not so much on the prequel), and I have always found them to be exceptionally honest and forthright and devoid of bullshit. And I think they maintain a healthy balance of keeping an eye on the box office (let’s be honest – they’re working in an exploitation genre) while actually trying to make their films the best they can be. They work to balance the commercial elements with the story elements, something that revered icons like Roger Corman could rarely claim.
That need to balance is why they dropped the Near Dark remake – they were open about the fact that, commercially, they would be seen as aping Twilight. The time wasn’t right. On the other hand the need to get the story right is why they’ve been working on a Friday the 13th reboot for so very, very long (CHUD’s own Mark Wheaton was involved with them in breaking a story years ago, a development timeline that exceeds any of the sequels by a huge multiplier). Now they’re dropping their Rosemary’s Baby remake because they just couldn’t crack the story.
Fuller tells Collider (via JoBlo): “We went down that road and we even talked to the best writers in town and it feels like it might not be do-able. We couldn’t’ come up with something where it felt like it was relevant and we could add something to it other than what it was so we’re now not going to be doing that film.”
This doesn’t mean they’ll never do it, but it does mean that they looked at the property and decided that they didn’t want to just shove an inferior project out there to capitalize on the name recognition. Yeah, they could win the weekend, but they wouldn’t have a movie they could stand behind.
* I am a real sucker for cool monsters.