After spending the last several years helping turn the “Predator” franchise into one of genre cinema’s most unexpectedly healthy ongoing concerns, Dan Trachtenberg is putting the hunt aside for the moment. During Paramount Animation’s presentation at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, the studio announced that Trachtenberg will direct an untitled animated comedy-horror film based on Yehudi Mercado’s graphic novel “Freddy The 13th.”
And no, despite the title, this isn’t some surprise “Friday The 13th” offshoot or a Jason Voorhees crossover. The new film is based on Mercado’s family-friendly horror-comedy about Freddy Vanwinkle, the thirteenth son of a thirteenth-born son, who accidentally inherits a monstrous mantle. The film’s logline is pretty simple: a family vacation turns into a nightmare when fun Uncle Freddy accidentally kills the Boogeyman and takes on his powers.
Paramount Animation is reportedly positioning the project as a PG-rated horror-comedy meant to deliver “scares and laughs to the whole family.” Trachtenberg will also produce alongside his longtime collaborator Ben Rosenblatt.
It’s an interesting pivot for Trachtenberg, who has spent much of the decade reshaping the “Predator” franchise for 20th Century Studios. He directed “Prey,” followed that with the animated anthology film “Predator: Killer of Killers,” and most recently helmed “Predator: Badlands.” Those films helped re-energize the franchise after years of uneven attempts, with Trachtenberg finding ways to rethink the series without abandoning its primal genre appeal.
Of course, Trachtenberg has never been limited to just one sandbox. Before “Prey,” he broke through with “10 Cloverfield Lane,” a lean, contained thriller that showed off his knack for pressure-cooker genre storytelling. “Freddy The 13th” sounds like a much lighter lane, but given the filmmaker’s interest in remixing familiar horror and sci-fi language, a PG animated monster comedy feels like a pretty natural next step.
No release date has been announced yet.
