Paramount Animation has unveiled Freddy the 13th, an animated film that Dan Trachtenberg is developing with Yehudi Mercado. The project was introduced at Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France, putting a new family-facing title into motion under a filmmaker best known for harder-edged genre work.
Trachtenberg has not hidden the contrast. On Instagram, he wrote that most of his career has been spent making movies parents probably should not show their kids, then added that he was finally making one that they can. The line lands because Paramount says Freddy the 13th will be wholesome and PG-rated, a family comedy-horror built around a graphic horror novel rather than a straight fright story.
The film is based on Mercado’s graphic novel of the same name and follows Freddy Vanwinkle, a hapless 13th-born son who seems to fail at everything he does. In the story, a family vacation goes wrong after Uncle Freddy accidentally kills the Boogeyman and takes on his powers. Trachtenberg is producing with Ben Rosenblatt, while Mercado is co-directing the movie that brings the book’s horror setup into a more accessible register.
That tonal pivot matters because Trachtenberg’s recent work has leaned in the opposite direction. His directing credits include 10 Cloverfield Lane, Prey, Predator: Killer of Killers and Predator: Badlands, and he recently signed a three-year first-look deal with Paramount Pictures. Paramount Animation, now overseen by newly appointed president Jennifer Dodge, has been building a slate that also includes Survivor, The Naughty List and PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie, which opens in August.
What Paramount has not said yet is when Freddy the 13th will start production or when audiences will see it. For now, the announcement does what studio unveilings are supposed to do: it sets the creative team, the tone and the promise of a PG-rated movie that is meant to play to kids and adults at the same time.
