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Friday the 13th remake and World War Z 2 release dates cancelled - SciFiNow

Friday the 13th remake and World War Z 2 release dates cancelled

Friday The 13th reboot and World War Z 2 are in trouble

In perhaps unsurprising but possibly disappointing news, Paramount has finally done something about the release dates for its Friday The 13th reboot and World War Z 2. Specifically, it’s taken them away

Deadline reports that the two long, long, long-in-development films have been taken off the release schedule. This is not at all surprising for Brad Pitt’s zombie epic sequel, given that there’s been no director attached to it since JA Bayona jumped ship for Jurassic World 2. As Deadline notes, it was reported that Pitt was courting his old friend David Fincher to direct, but that still isn’t happening, and it definitely isn’t happening on 9 June.

With Pitt’s involvement, you’d have to suspect this is more a question of simple rescheduling until they can find a director, although it’s interesting how difficult that process seems to have been. That being said, the production issues on the first film weren’t exactly under-reported.

Friday The 13th‘s release date scrubbing is a little more of an eyebrow-raiser given that things finally seemed to be moving forward on that, but Variety reports that it’s not just delayed, it’s “on ice.”

Now, both Variety and Deadline suggest that one of the main reasons for this is the disappointing box-office performance of one of Paramount’s other long-delayed horror movies: Rings.

The third film in The Ring franchise failed to top the US box-office (falling to the apparently unstoppable Split) and making $13-odd million in its opening weekend. That’s roughly what Ouija: Origin Of Evil did in its opening weekend, for example, except Mike Flanagan’s horror sequel had an $9 million budget as opposed to a $25 million budget (not including advertising), and it had good reviews.

Friday The 13th was edging into a similar budget range, currently standing at $21 million, but it had a director set in The Crazies‘ Breck Eisner and a script from Prisoners‘ Aaron Guzikowski. Admittedly, this film has gone through several incarnations, and we’re sure that, like Jason floating to the top of Crystal Lake, it will resurface in some form or another, either with a new creative team or not. It just won’t arrive on 13 October.

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