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While the horrors of Friday the 13th may be over for this year, the trials and tribulations for fans of Jason Voorhees rage on. Friday the 13th hasn’t seen a new entry in the franchise since 2009 and although a series, Crystal Lake, was in the works from A24, recent creative shuffles have caused it to start from scratch. That all happened this past summer, but franchise producer and director Sean S. Cunningham has shed some light on both the series’ progress and what fans can expect from the future of the Friday the 13th franchise.
At Sliver Scream Con in Worcester, Massachusetts, via Bloody Disgusting, this past week the creator gave us a vague date to keep our eye out for. “Last I heard, they’re talking about shooting it in Australia at the end of this year and releasing on Halloween 2025. But I’ve heard versions of that story for so long, I don’t put a lot of credibility into it. There’s just so many things that can go sideways.” Cunningham would then go into detail about the events that lead Crystal Lake in a new direction.
“Some time ago, the rights expired on the original script, so then there became doubt about who owns what after 35 years. That was being worked out by lawyers, and we were trying to figure out what we were going to do.” He would continue on, “We were trying to do a TV series, which we actually got pretty far down the road on. I was very happy with that. I thought it was going to be a lot of fun, and then the rights thing blew up and the TV series got postponed, and then the pandemic arrived.” The filmmaker would elaborate further:
“Finally, A24 decided that they would hook up with Peacock and do a Friday the 13th TV series. They were gonna hire Bryan Fuller, a very good writer. In the world of television, the showrunner, the main writer, is the star. That’s the person you have to have complete faith in, because it’s not the ability to write one story; it’s the ability to tell a new story every week. That’s very, very hard, and very few people can do it.”
Cunningham then revealed the reason why Bryan Fuller was let go. “Bryan got the job, and it was greenlit. It was going forward, they started to set up the writers’ room, and they didn’t like the road he was going down. They felt it was gonna be too dark. So they abandoned it and then hired another writer [Brad Caleb Kane].” He would then detail one of the sequences saying, “A bunch of kids – 8, 9 years old – are out on the ice playing peewee hockey. One kid does a breakaway, skates down, and who’s in the net but Jason. He tries to shoot, Jason blocks it. The kid who’s trailing scores the goal, and they go, ‘Yay!’ And Jason’s pissed,” With a laugh, Cunningham added:
“He starts chopping at the kids and the ice starts to crack, and then we cut out of that. The explanation would be that kids in the high school had shot this video as a joke, and it was going viral on the internet. But I thought it was so silly and so much fun. I wish we’d gotten a chance to shoot it.”
‘Friday the 13th’ Has Lived Up to Its Unlucky Date
Jason Voorhees and Friday the 13th ruled the 80s with eight films throughout the slasher sub-genre’s most cherished decade. However, since then, the franchise has been very stop-and -go with a crossover with Freddy Krueger, a remake and a 2017 video game that had a cult following to its name. That being said, the latter was deeply affected by the lawsuit Cunningham had with original Friday the 13th writer Victor Miller. This all seems to be in the past now, but Friday fans are still feeling the effects of that. With the recent showrunner change on Crystal Lake, the series might be just as cursed as the camp counselors that dare step foot on the frightening site. Hearing that the series was too dark for Peacock’s liking is just another tiring wrinkle in Jason Voorhees’ depressing saga back to the screen.
The Future of ‘Friday the 13th’
While Cunningham said in the past that he was developing a new Friday the 13th film, there was no update on that potential project at Silver Scream Con. Instead, the creator offered this tease, “There always seems to be a desire to have another Friday the 13th movie, which would have a distinct life from the TV series. For sure, Jason’s gonna show up in more video games. We had a really nice run with the first video game [2017’s Friday the 13th: The Game].” He would finish, “There’s more to come.” As fans wait for more news regarding Jason’s killer future, you can rent Friday the 13th on all major paid VOD services.
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