It will never not make me sad that Michael gets reboot after reboot while Jason and Freddy are forced to sit collecting dust. Especially since they're better characters. Yeah, I said it!
For what it's worth, the rumor is the Halloween series would roll with the previous anthology idea that they tried with Season of the Witch. Which is honestly the way they should go considering Michael has truly run his course.
The ultimate Catch 22. You could get so creative with Freddy but yes, that casting needs to be absolutely nail on the head (and I think it should be someone who can do multiple films if successful so going for a big name wouldn't be my approach).
Hard disagree on anyone being able to play Jason or Michael though. There is a very stark difference between someone more stiff and rigid and cumbersome under the mask than some like Kane Hodder, who literally plays Jason as an entirely fleshed out character with his own quirks and intricacies. The Hodder Friday films are some of the most wildly different and tonal movies amongst the entire franchise but his Jason always feels like the same living and breathing character, whether he's fighting Carrie, jumping between bodies, in Manhattan or in space.
Fully agreed. A real challenge with Freddy is Robert Englund's portrayal is very well engrained for any Horror fan, and we all know Freddy as a wise-cracking killer. (Which admittedly got to the point of sheer parody and sapped him of a whole lot of menace, but that's another convo.) So if you have someone trying to be that, they're gonna' be held up to how Robert did it. And there's no telling how folks will react if you try going in a different direction.
For what it's worth, the remake tried taking him in a...dirtier...direction that was originally intended. But it's the kind of direction you can't really be a fan or root for him because of that. And then they made the mistake of still having him make wise-cracks and those two directions did. NOT. work together. General Horror rule of thumb, especially for a franchise. The main monster/killer has to be likable in some way. As in legit likable, or "like to hate". Freddy, Jason, Ghostface, Jigsaw, all of them great examples! Yes, they mutilate, torture, and kill in all sorts of ways, but we still like them. But if a monster/killer is being one in a very sexually icky way, you're not going to get much longevity out of them since that's a monster the audiences don't like, and not in a "like to hate" way, either.
And yeah, Kane Hodder quite literally threw himself into the role of Jason. You know it's him with the way he moves and reacts, and he brought Jason to life in a very awesome way.