Lebron James Is Reportedly in Talks to Produce a Friday the 13th Reboot

We know that’s a zany headline, but trust us—this story isn’t quite as weird as you might initially think. Given the massive box office success of Halloween this weekend, we might well be headed into a new golden age of slasher franchise reboots—and you know studios are all going to be vying for a cut of the potential profits.

Enter, film producer Lebron James, who is already producing the Space Jam sequel through his company Springhill Entertainment. Bloody Disgusting is reporting (through unnamed sources) that next on his docket could be a return to Camp Crystal Lake, in the form of a Friday the 13th reboot. He would be producing with Vertigo Entertainment, one of the companies behind the massively successful It last year.

One might not think of the horror genre when looking at James’ public persona, but to film fans this isn’t actually that big a surprise. Lebron is an outspoken horror movie fan, and proved it last year with a ridiculously disturbing Pennywise Halloween costume. He even released a pair of Friday the 13th sneakers in the past. The guy is clearly pretty familiar with the property, if he’s putting it on his all-important shoes.

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Jason Voorhees, meanwhile, hasn’t been seen on screen since he appeared in the franchise’s 12th installment in 2009, which was Marcus Nispel’s back-to-basics reboot. Would King James’ Friday the 13th be more of the same?

There’s one complicating factor, however, and that’s the legal rights to Jason himself. Victor Miller, the screenwriter of the original Friday the 13th, recently prevailed in his long court battle against Horror, Inc., which awards him the U.S. rights to the original Friday the 13th. But because the killer of the original film is Mrs. Pamela Voorhees (decades-old spoilers!), and Jason doesn’t appear in the film as a hockey-masked adult, it’s unclear if Miller would have the rights to use the adult, masked Jason. Could this mean that Lebron James’ version of the story would have to be something along the lines of a remake of the ORIGINAL Friday the 13th? Because that might actually be interesting—even though the horror community would no doubt be upset about the lack of an adult Jason Voorhees.

Hopefully we can get some confirmation of these reports in the near future, as well as an inkling of what Lebron’s Friday might look like.