Horror in the 1980s was all about the slasher craze and theFriday the 13thfranchise was king.
From 1980 to 1989, an astonishing eight films about Camp Crystal Lake were pumped out.
That slowed down after New Line Cinema bought the rights to the franchise from Paramount.
Image by Jefferson Chacon
The 2009 entry was a success,making $91 million worldwide on a $19 million budget.
Almost a decade and a half later, we’re still waiting.
And why is that?
Image via Paramount Pictures
Oh, you know,just a casual, decades-long legal dispute between the original creators.
Those might not have been big hits,butFriday the 13thsure would be.
It was anything but aHalloweenclone.
Image via Paramount Pictures
It traded in suburbia for the woods of a summer camp, and its killer was a mystery.
That success meant sequels, with another one coming out the very next year.
It wouldn’t be that simple.Cunningham fought back,claiming to be the owner ofFriday the 13th.
His reasoning was that Victor Miller was nothing more than a work-for-hire writer.
It was Cunningham’s idea, Miller simply was the employee hired to write it.
Who Won the ‘Friday the 13th’ Lawsuit?
Image via Paramount Pictures
Miller disagreed that he was a work-for-hire writer.
In 2018,a U.S. District Court Judge ruled in favor of Victor Miller.
He agreed that the screenplay forFriday the 13thwasn’t a made-for-hire work.
Image via Gun Media
It was his ruling that Miller was an independent contractor.
It took a little boy to finally kill the hockey-masked slasher.
The lawsuit thankfully came to a complete end in September 2021.
Friday the 13th is a horror-slasher film by director Sean S. Cunningham and follows a group of camp counselors who are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant while trying to reopen a summer known to be the site of a child’s drowning and a grisly double murder. The film began a decades-long franchise that would eventually lead to the creation of Jason Voorhees, one of the most popular horror icons of all time.
It was here that the 2nd U.S.
This meant thathe reclaimed the rights to theFriday the 13thfranchise.
It wasn’t a complete win for Miller regarding complete control of the direction of the franchise.
Sean S. Cunningham kept control of the foreign rights for one.
There was also one more key piece of information that didn’t make the next steps so clear.
What Does the Lawsuit Mean for the Future of Friday the 13th?
We miss Jason, bring him back!
Finally, we’re going to getFriday the 13th Part 13and more, right?
Sean S. Cunningham also kept control of the intellectual property from theFriday the 13thsequels.
What does that mean?
As Victor Miller only wrote the first movie,he only retained the intellectual property from that project.
Who knows when we’ll get another movie.
Released by Gun Media,Friday the 13th: The Gamefittinglycame out on Friday, October 13, 2017.
(A few of these have to be included if there’s ever another movie!)
It’s not yet known if you’ll still be able to play it offline in the future.
)andKiller Clowns From Outer Space.
What Will the ‘Friday the 13th’ Prequel Series ‘Crystal Lake’ Look Like?
EvenKevin Williamson,the horror legend who wroteScream, was going to come in and write an episode.
But how did they get around the Jason rights?
Well,Crystal Lakeis a prequel series that will take place before the events of the first film.
Even the star of the first film, Adrienne King, was somehow being brought back in a role.
Jason can exist in this world as his child self and his mother can be there as well.
Still, that means no masked Jason, right?
We can go to Hell, we can go to space.
How can that be when Cunningham holds those rights?
Who knows what awaits for Friday the 13th?
And as forCrystal Lake?
Maybe there will be an adult Jason somehow, maybe there won’t be.
Friday the 13this available to rent on Amazon in the U.S.
