Blumhouse Productions brought the Halloween franchise back in a major way with a trilogy of films from director David Gordon Green, and the filmmaker has partnered with the studio to again offer a revival of The Exorcist franchise. Another franchise that the studio is hoping to breathe new life into is Friday the 13th, as it’s been more than a decade since fans were given a new adventure into the long-running slasher series. Such a revival is easier said than done, as creatives behind the franchise are embroiled in a lawsuit that has put the entire future of the concept on hold.
“Jason [Blum] and I are definitely in agreement that Friday the 13th is the thing we would love to get our hands on. I really want to go back to the basics,” The Exorcist: Believer producer Ryan Turek shared with Inverse. “You don’t need too many ingredients for a Friday the 13th film. You need summer camp, you need campers, and you need Jason Voorhees in a mask. Listen, I’ve gone on the record saying Halloween is the ultimate slasher film for me. That’s my favorite slasher film of all time. But Friday the 13th as a franchise is one that I just bow down to. I just love everything about it. And if we were able to live in both worlds, like we do with Halloween, then to be able to live at Crystal Lake for a while would be so incredible.”
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Luckily, the entire mythology of the Friday the 13th franchise isn’t being held in purgatory, as Bryan Fuller is developing the TV series Crystal Lake for Peacock, but the specifics of that story tie into the complex history of the franchise and the legal matters at hand.
The legal dispute is in relation to director Sean S. Cunningham and writer Victor Miller. Cunningham hired Miller to write Friday the 13th, largely based on the name, with that initial film igniting 11 sequels and an immensely profitable brand. The legal dispute centered around who owns the rights to elements of the franchise, including Jason Voorhees, the hockey-mask-wearing killer.
What complicates matters is that Jason wasn’t the killer in the original movie, with the iconic image of the undead murderer not fully being established until the third chapter. This means that, until the matter is completely settled, a film can’t utilize both the title “Friday the 13th” and the mythology of Jason Voorhees, which would require a new film to only use one of these elements. Crystal Lake, for example, is set in the world of the film, but isn’t directly leaning on the well-known title or Jason Voorhees himself.
Stay tuned for updates on the future of the Friday the 13th franchise.
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