Summary
- Sean S. Cunningham believes delays in any new
Friday the 13th
film due to studios being hesitant over potential returns. - Legal disputes over franchise rights further complicate matters, stalling development despite initial hope.
- Cunningham, while optimistic about TV series and video game, predicts a new movie will not be in sight for at least 3 years.
Jason Voorhees has survived many things across several entries of the Friday the 13th franchise, but perhaps his biggest adversary has been a return to the big screen. 2009 was the last time the character stalked Camp Crystal Lake and since then the franchise was tied up in a legal dispute that put the series on hold until everything could be worked out. In 2023, director Sean S. Cunningham gave his blessing for a new Friday the 13th film, but nothing has come to fruition. Now, with news that the A24 TV series is seeking a new creative direction and the reveal of the multi-platform Jason Universe, Cunningham is revealing that a new movie is truly nowhere in sight.
Release Date May 9, 1980
Runtime 1hr 35min
Studio Paramount Pictures, Georgetown Productions Inc., Sean S. Cunningham Films
Franchise Friday the 13th
During an appearance at Texas Frightmare Weekend, via CreepyCatalog.com, Cunningham participated in a panel alongside the franchise’s first final girl, Adrienne King (Alice), and special effects artist Tom Savini. While they did discuss their work on 1980’s Friday the 13th, the conversation soon shifted to the franchise as a whole and when fans could possibly see a new film. Cunningham didn’t bring up any of the rights issues that have kept Jason off the big screen but instead pointed the finger at movie studios for not wanting to risk spending money on a project that might not give them a huge return on their investment.
Sean S. Cunningham Suggests Studios Are Reluctant to Back a New Film
The director and producer indicated that things changed greatly after the pandemic in regard to movie-watching habits, particularly projects that are released in theaters. New Line holds the rights to the Friday the 13th movies, and he believes that they aren’t willing to give the film a substantial budget to get it moving, especially if they’re not certain it will make significant money in theaters. That being said, Cunningham isn’t all doom and gloom about the franchise’s future on the big screen and believes that it could happen down the line, but not for “at least three years.”
Many fans thought when the legal wrangling surrounding the franchise was over that a new film could easily be put into development. The legal dispute has been well documented but, in 2016, Friday the 13th writer Victor Miller made moves to use a section of United States copyright law that allows the author of a work to regain the copyright of that work 35 years after they sold it. Since Miller was the sole writer of the original Friday the 13th screenplay, he made the argument that he was the original copyright owner of the script, which would allow him by law to regain the copyright.
Also in 2016, Sean S. Cunningham’s company, Manny Company, and Horror Inc., the rights holder of the copyrighted elements of the Friday the 13th franchise at the time, challenged Miller’s actions and filed a lawsuit against him. They made the claim that Miller wrote the screenplay as an employee of the Manny Company, which would mean he never owned the screenplay’s copyright to begin with. It essentially came down to whether he wrote the script as a work-for-hire or if he was an independent contractor. By 2018, the court ruled in Miller’s favor, declaring him to be the sole owner of the copyright to the Friday the 13th screenplay. An appeal was filed in 2021 by Horror Inc. and the Manny Company, but the Court of Appeals affirmed the previous ruling.
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What complicates matters is that the ruling only applies to the first film’s script’s copyright in the United States. Every country has its own copyright laws, so, while Miller can do whatever he wants with his copyrighted work in the U.S., that’s not necessarily true internationally. Furthermore, Miller wouldn’t be able to use any of the copyrighted material created for any of the Friday the 13th sequels.
Cunningham seems to be positive about other Friday the 13th content, even if it’s not spearheaded by him. While at the event, he expressed no ill will for the A24-produced prequel series, Crystal Lake, which recently lost showrunner Bryan Fuller over creative differences. Despite the critical upheaval, Cunningham wants to see where the show is headed and how the story is brought to life in a fresh way. He also revealed that a new Friday the 13th video game is coming, which should be great news for fans.
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