Friday the 13th Series Has a Massive Commitment From Peacock

Jason Vorhees is coming to television. The movie rights for the Friday the 13th franchise are still a giant mess, but streaming has invented a new way to tell stories with the iconic slasher. A24 and Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller have teamed with Peacock to deliver a new series called Crystal Lake, which will be a pseudo-prequel to the Friday the 13th films. Not only did Peacock order Crystal Lake to series, the streaming service actually won a bidding war for the project by giving it a massive financial commitment.

After the news of the series broke, Fuller spoke to Fangoria about what fans will be able to expect from this new era of Friday the 13th. He obviously couldn't talk much about story details, but Fuller did explain that the series landed at Peacock because of the enormous commitment the service was willing to make. Crystal Lake is all-but guaranteed to have two seasons out of the gate, with a monster budget for each episode.

"One of the things that is super exciting and one of the many reasons that we went with Peacock is that they blew every other competitor out of the water," Fuller said. "There was a bidding war on this, and they came in strong and gave us a full-season commitment with a huge penalty if we don't do a second season. So it's kind of a two-season commitment, but really just the first-season commitment. We're going to have roughly five times the per-episode budget that we had on Hannibal."

Hannibal, which aired for three seasons on NBC, is regarded as one of the highest quality network TV dramas of the last decade. The series looked much more polished and expensive than its network competitors, which makes the idea of Crystal Lake having an even bigger budget all the more enticing. 

"It will absolutely be recognizable for the hardcore Friday the 13th fans, but will also have an appeal to people who are simply interested in top-shelf TV storytelling," Fuller explained.

Are you looking forward to seeing Friday the 13th make the jump to the small screen? Let us know in the comments!