Friday The 13th producers speak

Crave Online: Where does Friday the 13^th fit in with your other horror remakes?

Brad Fuller: We've been very lucky that some studios have brought to us ideas, different franchises in the past. This was one that as soon as they brought it to us, we jumped right on board. It was an arduous journey to get the rights cleared. Even after a studio approaches you, there's a lot. There's a long process of trying to figure it out. It probably took almost two years from that initial phone call to the script. Through it all we were always, always adamant that we wanted to make a movie where Jason Vorhees is a brutal killer. Where he runs and it's real and it's really horrifying. We went through three incarnations of writers before we got the one that we wanted. Once the tone of the movie was right, then we went all systems go.

Crave Online: A new Jason is good and all, but my favorite part about Friday the 13^th was I always knew I would get to see boobies.

Andrew Form: Well, we don't let you down.

Brad Fuller: There are so many boobies. I would say to you that this is our seventh movie that we've done as a company. This is our seventh movie together. We've done seven movies. We've never had any nudity. We've made up for it all in this movie.

Crave Online: In all seriousness, that's a staple of the series you can't ignore.

Brad Fuller: Absolutely the reason we wanted to do this movie. We knew when we were doing the movie.

Crave Online: Will that pose more problems with the ratings board than the violence?

Brad Fuller: Listen, we don't have any violence when there's nudity. There are kids, there's a lot of kids having sex. That's part of what happens.

Andrew Form: They're not just nude having sex. They do other things nude.

Brad Fuller: They waterski nude.

Andrew Form: They love it, yeah.

Crave Online: Do the rules about sex and death still apply?

Brad Fuller: No rules, we threw out the [rules]. The rules are everyone dies. That's the rule.

Crave Online: So it's not just promiscuous sex and drug use getting punished?

Brad Fuller: Everyone's promiscuous nowadays. And you're in his turf.

Crave Online: Is this a way of expanding the universe of Friday the 13^th?

Brad Fuller: No, what we wanted to do, really when you talk about that universe, let's take it back to what the original movies were which was a movie that took place at a camp with a guy who is a ruthless killer and who's terrifying and not a joke and not doing stupid things. We want it to be real and horrifying so that was the core tenet of this movie to us. That was what we were always working towards was to make him feel real and scary.

Crave Online: Why is Jason wearing a coat in this one?

Brad Fuller: It's cold out there.

Crave Online: So he's not a zombie?

Brad Fuller: No, it's cold.

Andrew Form: That's how he roles.

Brad Fuller: There are people like that.

Crave Online: Do you have some personal issues to work out with these horror movies?

Brad Fuller: My wife thinks so. The weird thing is that when we started our company seven years ago, there was no notion that we were going to become a horror company, much less a horror remake company. We just wanted to make movies. Drew and I, Michael had a huge career but Drew and I just wanted to make movies. We were really lucky that the first one worked. As we all know, what you do, they expect that from you and we started getting offered great titles. We never said no because we just want to keep on working.

Andrew Form: We say no to some of them.

Crave Online: Which ones?

Brad Fuller: The only one I talked about today, we said no to CHUD.

Andrew Form: April Fool's Day. There's a bunch of them out there that we passed on.

Crave Online: Where do you see taking Nightmare on Elm Street if you land that one?

Brad Fuller: First of all, we're not producing it yet.

Andrew Form: If we're lucky enough.

Brad Fuller: If we're lucky enough to get that movie, I suspect because of what we try and do with all our horror movies is really keep it real. I don't know that, if we're lucky enough to do that, it's always weird to speculate on that but I can't imagine Freddy's going to be throwing out one-liners the whole way through.

Andrew Form: Much closer to the original. Really scary.

Brad Fuller: Yeah, really scary.

Crave Online: And a new Freddy?

Brad Fuller: I think it has to be and I know fans hate to hear that and everyone says you have to put Robert in. He said it too.

Crave Online: Maybe Englund can make an appearance?

Brad Fuller: And we would love to have him.

Crave Online: But not as Freddy?

Brad Fuller: I don't think he wants to do it and I think that in order to differentiate what we're doing from the other ones, we would need to find someone else to play that role.

Crave Online: And that's tough because he's the horror killer with the most personality.

Brad Fuller: Yes, and I would hope that ours would also but I just don't know that witty quips is necessarily the way that we would want to go.

Crave Online: Do you imagine using CGI for the dreams?

Brad Fuller: I think you have to but as a rule, whenever I talk to my son about this, when he sees CGI, it takes him out of the movie. My kids tell me that all the time so we always strive to do things practically in all of our movies. And we have the option to do CGI because Bay has this amazing relationship with Digital Domain and we get the friends and family deal there and we opt out of it because I think for horror movies, it feels real when it's all happening in the camera if you can do that.

Crave Online: What about The Birds?

Brad Fuller: That's a hard one. That's a really hard one. That movie is a lot about the filmmaker. Martin Campbell is a guy, Casino Royale could be my favorite movie. I love that movie. I thought that he did an amazing job but that is the first true filmmaker who we've had an opportunity to sit down and really work with a guy who knows what he's talking about, is very passionate about the movie, has some fantastic ideas about what he wants that movie to be and with a guy like that, you just want to follow him up the mountain and do what he says.

Andrew Form: And to be lucky enough to have interest from Naomi Watts to play the lead.

Brad Fuller: Honestly, we're movie producers and to have those kind of people who want to do something that you're involved with, how can you not do it? You just make it the best it can possibly be.

Crave Online: What's his take on it?

Brad Fuller: We're working that out now but there's only so much that can happen. Birds attack. It's the explaining of why is it happening or if you explain why it's happening or who are the characters that it's happening to and the setting that it's happening in. Those are the things that we're contending with now. We're in the very early process on that, very early.

Crave Online: Are you keeping the Friday theme song?

Brad Fuller: I think you have to keep that theme song in the movie. I mean, it's disrespectful not to. Drew does the money, right? So I'll say, "Can we do this?" He's good with money because we're usually on budget and if it were up to me, we'd go wildly over budget. But when that came up and there was a check to write, he was the first one who says, "We've got to write that check."

Andrew Form: Yeah, we locked that down before we shot a day of film.

Brad Fuller: So it was interesting today because that piece, it's never going to live again. I think it lives and dies up there today. That's not going to be the teaser that goes into theaters and that's not going to be the trailer. It was a little bit of a test for us to put that music piece in there and to hear the audience erupt the first time. We didn't suspect that would happen.

Andrew Form: It's iconic, it really is. You can go to black and just play that and people know what movie it is.

Crave Online: Does this take place in a world where people have seen other horror movies?

Brad Fuller: Let me answer that. This is a world where the kids in our movie are aware of Jason Vorhees certainly and of what happened at Camp Crystal Lake. Hopefully if we did our job right, it's not a bunch of kids sitting around and people disappearing and people are wondering what's happening. I think that what attracted us to the script is a lot of the killing happens at the same time so that you aren't doing that. First of all, we have 13 people to kill in 95 minutes which is more than we've ever had to do. But we really tried to do it. We don't want audiences to go, "Jesus, those kids are dumb." You can't avoid it on some level because you're going to a horror movie but it's something that we're definitely always striving to eliminate.

Crave Online: With all this talk about giving Jason more character, what are you adding to Jason? Is it like they tried to do with Halloween?

Brad Fuller: That's not what we're doing. I don't want to misconstrue it. It's not that. In our movie, Jason Vorhees is a guy who lives in the wilderness and he tracks. He traps his food and he's got his world that he doesn't want people infringing on. If you infringe on his world, he's gonna kill you.

Crave Online: But not into his childhood.

Brad Fuller: No. We did that in Texas Chainsaw The Beginning and I think one of the reasons that that movie didn't do as well as the first one is we made, I shouldn't say we made, but the mistake potentially there was Thomas Hewitt was a sympathetic character. I don't think audiences want their killers to be sympathetic. I think they want them to be hell bent on one thing and one thing only. So we've eliminated that here. I think we have a device, a flashback that we're trying to figure out how it works into the movie, if it works into the movie. Beyond that, this is Jason Vorhees doing what he does best.

Crave Online: Will Nana Visitor be wearing the sweater?

Andrew Form: Ha ha ha. Who knows? The sweater was on the wardrobe truck. I've seen the sweater. We have seen the sweater.

Crave Online: Did you shoot alternates where a character dies or doesn't?

Brad Fuller: We shot a couple deaths I actually think different ways. Not where their death is questionable, whether or not it happens. Just where we want to make sure that the deaths are really effective and we weren't sure when we were on set so there's a couple different options. But I don't think there's going to be any - - there's not going to be any characters who in one cut of the movie they live and in another cut they die.

Crave Online: What are your favorite horror films you'd never remake?

Brad Fuller: The Exorcist.

Andrew Form: Exorcist and The Shining.

Crave Online: How about Jaws?

Andrew Form: Oh, never, I'd never touch Jaws. Love Jaws.

Brad Fuller: I don't think they would come to us with that. I don't know if that movie plays to our strengths.

Andrew Form: I love Poltergeist and I know they're talking about doing it.

Brad Fuller: I'll do Poltergeist.

Andrew Form: The original's very scary. I love the original.

Crave Online: Is this Friday a period piece in the '80s?

Brad Fuller and Andrew Form: No.

Crave Online: But you did Chainsaw as period.

Brad Fuller: I think that it's a weird thing but I think cell phones and things like that can ruin a horror movie. People calling out and when you get rid of all that CNN and all that stuff and it just becomes you're isolated, it's hard to maintain isolation in today's world. I always hate it in a movie, and we did it, by the way, I'm not a hypocrite here, where you're looking at your phone in The Hitcher and oh, there's no service, there's no service. That's a ridiculous thing. At that point, we didn't know. We just figured let's just put it in the '70s and just get away with that and put Jessica Biel in the tightest pants we can and a belly shirt and it worked.

Crave Online: I really liked The Hitcher by the way. I don't know why people were so hard on that.

Brad Fuller: We did too and we did not go into it thinking that we were in trouble. We thought that this is a fun, great movie. The stunts in the last third of that movie are some of the funnest stuff. That's great grammar, was some of the most fun stuff that we've ever done as a company. Just loved spinning those cars. That whole scene with the helicopter, I was in the helicopter the whole time. I loved being in that helicopter while it was chasing them. That was a letdown for us.