Another blow for the slasher genre, but perhaps this will be a welcome one.
Platinum Dunes, a production company founded by Michael Bay, Andrew Form, and Brad Fuller, is done rebooting horror films. The company, which was founded in 2001, was originally known for rebooting classic slasher movies such as, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), Friday the 13th (2009), and A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010).
Now, the production company plans to focus on original content. In a recent chat with CinePOP, Fuller and Form discuss how they are closing the doors on horror reboots and shifting their focus on creating new and fresh horror.
“We’ve rebooted enough,” said Fuller. “We’re not going to be doing that anymore.”
“For us, as a company, we’re always looking for original material,” Form added. “And the idea of finding something original was important for us. We made a film where there’s two to three minutes of talking in the movie, where sound is a full character, and it feels like audiences are really responding to those ingredients.”
The movie Andrew Form referred to was A Quiet Place, directed and starring John Krasinski, which is currently blowing up the box office. Over the weekend the film took in over $50 million domestically.
Thanks to the recent success from A Quiet Place, and continued success with their popular Purge franchise, Platinum Dunes has decided to solely rely on producing fresh ideas.
This may seem disheartening to fans of slasher films, seeing as Bay’s production company tried to create a resurgence in the genre with their reboots, but this could turn into a blessing in disguise. Overall, the reboots weren’t received well with critics, and could even be argued as a contributor to the genre’s demise. With the company no longer treading the reboot territory, this could potentially shift attention towards other production companies attempting to create original, and, most importantly, entertaining slasher flicks.
