The pic directed by Marcus Nispel is the retelling of the original Friday the 13th about teenaged summer camp counselors that are systematically slaughtered by a mysterious killer. Jason Voorhees will wear the mask and kill, keeping the famous setting of Crystal Lake.

BD: You guys are sort of in the business of doing remakes all though you have some other original productions in the works, How do you define remakes and are there any things in remakes that bother you even though you make them?

BF: It’s a hard question because we didn’t get into the business to be in the remake business. We got into the business to make movies. When we started out, it was Michael Bay and his two brothers, I don’t think anyone really took them seriously. I don’t think we had any master plan of what the company was going to be. Our first movie happened to be a remake and we wanted to stay in business. We wanted to all have jobs and the next thing that came our way was another remake so we did those next two movies. The third movie wasn’t really a remake it was based on THE TEXAS CHAINSAW but it was an original story. At that point, I guess, we became the remake guys. We certainly didn’t fight it because we enjoyed making horror movies. The stories we were telling, for the most part we were excited about telling and we loved the genre. To be able to work in a media that you love and with characters that you love, it’s a great thing. Whether you want to produce musicals or animated movies or anything, if you love horror movies and somebody gives you the opportunity to make a good movie with Jason Voorhees, you can pass on that! That’s insane, how do you say no to that? How do I defend it? There’s really nothing to defend. We just love making movies and we love working with characters that we love. And at the same time as the studios are being very generous and offering us opportunities, we’re also looking for original material, concurringly.

BD: Let’s say the studio said, “We want FRIDAY THE 13TH, 12 and not the remake.” Do you have an idea of how it might have gone down?

BF: First of all, I don’t think that a studio would come to us and be like we want FRIDAY THE 13TH, 12 because they don’t need us to do that. They could go to the original people who made the movie and have them do it. I think as a production company its important to have a profile to do a certain thing, in our mind, for better, but in a lot of fans’ minds, for worse. We’re the guys you come to with a franchise and give us a shot to see what we can do with it. We wouldn’t be interested in doing that.

BD: So this is FRIDAY THE 13TH part 12, whether you count it as a number or not. You did do a sequel to TEXAS THE CHAINSAW MASSACRE, if, if, you did do FRIDAY THE 13TH again, if you did do the sequel, would you keep in mind that it is the 13th still, to some extent?

BF:I think that whenever you are making any type of film you have to think of a couple of things at the same time. First is the story, second are the characters, and somewhere else in that list is marketing. I think FRIDAY THE 13TH, the 13th has a marketing hook that is relevant that I don’t think that we or a studio would turn its back on. I don’t know how you do that and make it feel unique. If we are lucky enough to be in that position and I’d certainly endeavor to try and figure that out.

BD: With this FRIDAY THE 13TH, it’s a new take on an original film, yet, it implies that it is also the same universe as the first film?

BF: Yes, we have the same antagonist, Jason Voorhees. But as you well know, Jason didn’t kill anyone in the first film. We didn’t want to have a film where Jason’s mother was doing all the killing. We altered the story to reflect something in the middle of what the first film originally did and what we are doing here. In looking at all the films, we felt that we loved the first four films and really used that as the basis to what we are doing here.

BD: Every actor has a story about how their first encounter with the villain, Jason or Leatherface. Is there a specific actor that whether its Jason or Leatherface that actually freaked you out a little bit when you first saw them in person or are you easily able to separate the fact that they are who they are and not the character?

BF: It’s an interesting thing and you tend to get jaded after you’re in this business for a long time you meet a lot of different people. And I’ve been doing this for a long time, almost 27 years now and I’ve met a lot of people and some of them were people that scared the sh*t outta me when I was a kid. It’s always interesting to see them now and not have those same emotional responses. But also, they don’t have their make up on and you’re walking down the street, or you’re at the premiere, and it’s a different situation. Every time I see the hockey mask, it freaks me out, to this day. When Derek walks by, it freaks me out I still get that gut feeling and to a lesser degree I think that happened with Leatherface, too. Especially, when he had the mask on from the first one, where he’s wearing that mask, that when you grew up, it scared the sh*t outta you. And to see it, you can never divorce yourself fully from it.

BD: What’s your earliest memory of either the mask or the franchise or Jason?

BF: Well, I grew up in the 70s and the 80s so with my friends, we would all go to either see these movies or get them on VHS. I was too young to go out and drink or smoke when I watched them but I just remember being terrified because it could happen to anybody. Unbearably, at least where I grew up, everyone went to camp and there was always a lake, seeing someone with a hockey mask running around is pretty incongruent for that type of setting. It just always freaked me out. I always wanted to be a part of Jason Voorhees, however I did it, that character is just so iconic and just to have the opportunity to work with it, it’s a privilege.

BD: Was it difficult to flesh out a sort of new origin for him considering how many plot holes and flaws there are in the original franchise?

BF: We hired some great writers, the guys who did Freddy Vs. Jason, they were well versed in the mythology and knew what it was. Unlike a lot of other times when we are developing a movie, we go to a ton of different writers and in this case we just went to those guys. Within a week, and this was a year ago, they came up with what is first 15 minutes of this movie and they pitched it to us right there. And they knew exactly the tone and what had to happen. In this case, it really wasn’t difficult we just went to the right writers and they nailed it the first time.

BD: What is the tone compared to, let’s say, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE?

BF: In my mind, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE is a really dreary, dreary movie and there is no fun to be had in that movie, the fun is from being scared. In a FRIDAY THE 13TH movie we want the audience to laugh and have fun but at the same time be scared. So in this movie, there’s a ton of sex, there’s a ton of nudity, and there’s a lot of drugs, drinking, and hopefully the violence is balanced out by kids in funny situations saying or doing funny things. If it works out that’s the best case scenario, where you’re laughing from the crazy things that are happening and then when the actual scares happen, you’re terrified.

BD: I heard rumors that there is A LOT of nudity in this one. Is that true?

BF: Listen. I think that for us, was very important to get nudity and have nudity in this film. I feel like such a pervert in saying that, but the fact remains, these movies were putting beautiful women, topless or in short shorts at a time where that was very common. It’s not common anymore, you just don’t see sex in horror movies anymore. It’s not as prevalent as it once was. When we were thinking about what this film had to be, yes, it has to be scary, yes, you have to have a group of fun kids but you also have to have nudity in a FRIDAY THE 13TH movie. It just is part of it, it’s part of its DNA. Frankly, it was one of the most challenging parts of the movie because hot, great actresses aren’t eager to take off their clothes. Fortunately, we found some that were willing to do it.

BD: Speaking of difficult, was it hard to find a Camp Crystal Lake like in the middle of Austin, Texas?

BF: I think that it’s fair to say that Austin, Texas might not be the first place that people would think to find Camp Crystal Lake. For us, we didn’t feel that it was a natural setting necessarily but this is our fourth film we’ve made here and we love working in Austin. The terrain is varied and you can get a lot of different things. We kept looking until we found something that worked and it took a long time. It’s probably not as easy as if you went to a town that’s all lakes and camps. The fact is, as important as the setting is, the crew that we work with here is so important to us and many of them this is their sixth or seventh movie with us. We’ve come to rely on those people to deliver a certain level of quality. And we know coming here we can get that certain level of quality.

BD: When New Line shifted over to Warner Bros. there was a speculation that the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movie might not happen. Are there any updates on the progress of that?

BF: We are very anxious to get into NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET as of tonight they still haven’t made our deal. It’s complicated now, the rights, get more complicated and that is a property that defined a studio, truly. It’s not an easy thing just for them to let it go to a bunch of guys who weren’t there at its incarnation. Bob Shaye created that, he and Wes Craven created that and I just think that is a very challenging deal to make just by virtue of the parties involved.

BD: Did you have writers or a writer or anyone in mind for it yet?

BF: We’ve been approached by a lot of different writers and writers that are actually shocked me that they were interested in writing it, I mean like high, high level writers. I have a writing team, I think the guys that wrote this movie we’re fantastic and although we really haven’t talked about doing that movie. Again, their background of doing Freddy Vs. Jason, the background of the mythology, if it could happen we’d be lucky to get those guys. But it is just too soon to say because we don’t have the deal yet.

BD: What’s the status now on NEAR DARK?

BF: NEAR DARK, we are trying to get that one made. That movie is different than this movie, than NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, it’s movie where you don’t have a guy in a mask or some iconic figure chasing a bunch of kids. That movie, it’s kind of a romance, there’s horror elements, it doesn’t fit into a nice, neat box. And as such, I think it’s a harder movie to get made. Literally, an hour ago I was on the phone with our agent trying to figure out how we’re gonna get that movie made, we want to do it. But I don’t feel it’s imminent right now.

BD: Fitting in a nice box, after doing all these movies is putting together FRIDAY THE 13TH an easy task or is it still difficult?

BF: I’ve never found my job to be easy and every movie presents a different and equally complex set of challenges. On TEXAS CHAINSAW, there was a lot of freedom in that no one cared about that we made that movie when we made it. No one had any expectations and although we didn’t know it at the time, that was a unique experience, no one cared. Inversely, the similarity that we had had two studios involved, a lot of people looking at dailies, where as the challenges that we had on the TEXAS CHAINSAW because of inexperience, we hadn’t done it. The other issues of how do we satisfy Paramount and New Line, how do we make sure we are getting the coverage that we need, those things are very important.

BD: Is there a nervousness of a battle between the two studios on a final cut?

BF: No because there’s no issue on that. Michael Bay has the final cut on the movie. The studios have always been very deferential to Michael when it comes to that, and he’s not abusive with that either. It’s just kind of the simple matter of, we all watch the movie, we all talk about it and we’ve never had a film where the studio felt that we were making a mistake. And inversely, we haven’t had a film where we thought that the studio was making a mistake. It’s all very collaborative and it’s been great so far.

BD: Right now, we are sitting at one of the cabins outside of Crystal Lake? Do we actually get to see Camp Crystal Lake or do we see woods where Camp Crystal Lake was?

BF: No, you get to see Camp Crystal Lake. We’re going there, I don’t know when that is on the schedule, but we spend a couple days at Camp Crystal Lake or what we’re calling Camp Crystal Lake. Which is actually far away from here, it’s about four or five outside of Austin. That’s a long drive!

BD: Is it just an abandoned camp?

BF: It’s actually not an abandoned camp, it’s an actual, functioning camp. When had went there or when we had discovered it, it said that people had been going there and saying that it looks like Camp Crystal Lake. They had heard that a number of times.

BD: In the film, this camp, is it abandoned from the events that took place prior? The Jason events, what is the history of the camp?

BF: Well, it is Camp Crystal Lake and something horrible did happen there and Jason’s still there…

FRIDAY THE 13TH arrives in theaters Friday, February 13, 2009