Well, this news isn’t good.

Just about an hour ago we told you that Paramount had pulled this year’s planned Friday the 13th reboot from their release schedule, meaning Jason Voorhees will no longer be returning to the big screen on October 13th. At the time we wrote that, we weren’t sure if filming was still scheduled to begin in mid-March, as planned, but now we’ve learned a bit more about this mess.

From what we’re hearing, production on the new Friday the 13th has been indefinitely shut down, suggesting that there is indeed a death curse attached to our old pal Jason. From what we understand (from the initial story in which rights to Interstellar were swapped for “South Park’s” Cartman and Friday the 13th), Warner Bros./New Line were to get the rights to the franchise back in 2018, so it seems likely that the next Friday the 13th film will not be made by Paramount.

[Related] The Troubled History Behind the Next Friday the 13th

We can only speculate, but this sure seems to have something to do with Rings failing to make big bucks at the box office this past weekend. Though it came in second place overall, the 12-years-later franchise sequel made just $13 million (domestically) on a $25 million budget; considerably less than Paramount likely hoped to make from Samara’s return.

Did they get cold feet and pull the plug on Friday the 13th as a result of Rings‘ performance over the weekend? Given the timing, that seems to be the likely explanation.

Breck Eisner (The Crazies) was to direct the reboot from a script by Aaron Guzikowski.