CON: Freddy vs Jason
FREDDY VS JASON PANEL:
Participants:
Ken Kirzinger (Jason)
Director Ronny Yu
Producer Sean Cunningham
The
film stars:
Robert Englund
Ken Kirtzenger
Kelly Rowland
Release
Date:
August 12, 2003
The FREDDY VS JASON roundtables were split into two. First up
to bat was the creator of FRIDAY THE 13TH and one of the producers
of this film, Sean Cunningham, who, along with another man (whose
name I did not catch) peppered us with lots of info about the
film. Sean was eventually rushed out to continue
his PR stint at another table, at which point we were joined by Robert Englund (Freddy) and Ken
Kirzinger (Jason). Robert was his usual, high energy and master PR
showman self, while Ken, newer to the game, came across as a very
nice guy...think "gentle giant" (the man must be at
least 6'5", but damn cool). Here's what I got from my
talks with them:
PART ONE
WHAT DID THEY HAVE TO SAY?
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This film has been in development for about 10 years. Sean and Wes Craven thought it was a kool idea, talked to New Line about it, who said it sounded great. First, they had to get the rights together, Paramount owned FRIDAY THE 13TH, while WARNER BROS owned foreign. They finally cleared the rights and brought the project to New Line again. Wes then decided that he wanted to do his NEW NIGHTMARE movie, which put FvsJ on hold for a few more years.
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SCREAM set back the development of the movie for a couple of more years, according to Sean, where scripts would come in with Jason being a real person or filled with inside references. Big name screenwriters were doing this! They thought that’s what the public wanted. Sean and company didn’t want that though. They wanted to tackle the genre with respect and not patronize the audience. Sean ended that train of thought with: "Respect the genre, love it or get out of the way. Don’t tell me how smart you are". I say “Amen” to that.
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They never wanted it to be a pissing contest in between the two icons and that was the problem. They had two bad guys, so what would the movie be about? That caused story problems because everybody just wanted to see Freddy and Jason go at it, but even the best fight in the world has a limited value.
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They didn’t want to have past characters from the films incorporated in FREDDY VS JASON from the beginning, according to Sean. Tommy Harvis was mentioned in the next-to-final draft, but eventually got cut out. In the script, Tommy was leading a petition to close down Camp Crystal Lake. But if you go in and know your stuff in terms of both franchises, you will surely spot nods to those past films. You can tell that there’s some love for the characters in this film.
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Ronny Yu had free reign on the casting, nothing was studio imposed. So yes....Kelly Rowland (member of the singing group Destiny's Child and "star" of this film), is his fault.
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The Freddy look is very Kevin Yagher style (the man who did Freddy up for parts 2-3-4)
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The flick is "steel on flesh, blood splattering and it ranks up there in terms of highest gore content in both series". That's a bold statement, but they claim that they can back that up via the film. We’ll see!
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The ending of FREDDY VS JASON is apparently very organic. Both Freddy and Jason have never died through their films, so they found a clever way of putting a period to this movie. It’s the battle that is over...not the war.
PART TWO
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Ken Kirzinger loves the interest from the fans and sees his Jason stint as an amazing experience thus far.
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Robert thought FvsJ was going to be a year 2000 picture. Rob Bottin was supposed to direct it at that time, but the budget fell through. Guillermo Del Toro was also approached to do it, but did BLADE 2 instead.
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Ken commented on the whole Kane Hodder situation (for those unaware, Kane Hodder played the character of Jason in the previous 4 installments of the FRIDAY THE 13TH series and was replaced by Ken in FREDDY VS JASON. You can read Kane's response to the situation here) Ken said that it was a very fortunate thing for him and that he’s sure Kane is upset about it. All he could do is try to make the character his own and hope that when people see the movie, they’re going to see a different kind of Jason.
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Kane and Ken actually know each other, they worked on FRIDAY THE 13TH: PART 8 together where Ken was stunt coordinator and also played a cook that Jason tossed around.
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Ronny Yu’s (director) whole idea was that when Jason moves...it's very slow. Ronny had to tone Ken down for that. Jason’s movements are very specific. For example, when Jason gets berated by two kids during the rave sequence, Jason just stands there…then all of a sudden, he snaps some kids neck! Ken said that he thought that was much more effective and that this was the main difference between the old Jason (Kane) and the new Jason (Ken). ARROW NOTE: Having met both men in the flesh, I can see how their interpretation of Jason actually matches their real life personas. Kane is a fairly aggressive man and that came through on the screen while Ken is a very mellow looking fellow and I’m sure some of that will come through on the screen as well.
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The Freddy "look" according to Robert is very "David Miller" (the man who did Freddy up for Parts 1-5-New Nightmare). Having said that, Sean Cunningham told me the total opposite in his interview above. Hmmmm...who to believe?
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There is a play on the elements in this film. Since Jason was drowned, he’s afraid of water. Since Freddy was burned, he’s afraid of fire. So they toy with that. Should be interesting.
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Little trivia here, Robert actually turned in a draft for NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: PART 3: DREAM WARRIORS and some of his ideas wound up in the TV series (Freddy’s Nightmares) and in some of the sequels.
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Good news! Due to the success of “Taken”, NBC is doing a NEW four hour "V" mini-series with Faye Grant, Mark Singer and of course, Robert Englund returning. They found Jane Badler in Melbourne, but she now has an accent. It remains to be seen if she will be in the new series. I’m psyched for that! YIPPEE!
THE
FREDDY VS JASON CLIP
After the interviews, I rushed out to catch the FREDDY VS JASON panel, which included a short clip of the film, which went a little something like this:
“A cornfield, a rave and dumb teens high off their asses.
Jason walks in behind two tweaked out teens, cool as a cucumber.
The teens turn around and start bad mouthing good old Jase. Big
mistake. Being the ill-tempered man that he is, Mr. Voorhees
suddenly snaps one of the kids’ heads around 180 degrees. Was
that a tear in my eye? Yes, I was touched. Then, the REAL fun
began. Jason was set on fire, the machete came into play (you
bet!) and the sight of Jason walking through the cornfield all lit
up was one to behold.
This clip was well shot, gory and it looked like it would be
a classic "Jason goes on a rampage" moment. My only pet peeve
with it was that I felt like the two actors playing the initial
teens sucked balls. I just didn’t buy them as real ravers-- they
felt like actors pretending to be ravers. Needless to say, I was
happy to see them expire violently. The clip showed promise...now
BRING ON THE MOVIE!
BACK TO SAN DIEGO COMIC CON CENTRAL HERE
Source: JoBlo.com
