Given all the lawsuits surrounding the franchise, fans have been concerned that the upcoming “Friday The 13th” prequel series, “Crystal Lake,” from Bryan Fuller and A24 for Peacock, would be limited to what material it could use from the original 1980 film. Rights disputes between screenwriter Victor Miller and director Sean S. Cunnigham have been complicated and led to the franchise sitting in limbo for several years until now. And much to fan relief, to hear it from Fuller himself, there won’t be any roadblocks to using any elements of the “Friday The 13th” intellectual property.
While speaking to horror outlet Fangoria, Fuller says they can use “everything” from the films and even teased tackling various versions of Jason Voorhees over time. In the movies, we see Jason go from a special needs child that dies due to negligence at a summer camp to a giant unkillable slasher that eventually stalks people wearing a hockey mask and even heads into space in the distant future in “Jason X.”
READ MORE: ‘Crystal Lake’: A24, Bryan Fuller & Peacock Team For ‘Friday The 13th’ Prequel Series
“Everything. We can use everything. We can go to Hell; we can go to space. That’s not to say that we will do those things … although if we do go ten seasons, I will be lobbying hard to go to space,” Fuller told Fangoria in his first interview since the news broke.
“I think over the course of the series, you will see many familiar manifestations of Jason!”
However, on the movie front, it seems less clear when New Line Cinema will be able to make the next installment.
“A24 and Marc Toberoff, who is Victor Miller’s lawyer, have beautifully and excruciatingly assembled all of the ‘Friday The 13th’ rights. As a streaming series, we have the right to do everything under the ‘Friday The 13th’ umbrella. The movie rights are a completely different thing. They are tied up at New Line and are super, super messy and probably won’t be untangled anytime soon, but as far as us chickens in the television industry, uh, roost, we have access to anything and everything that ‘Friday The 13th’ has done up until this point.”
We haven’t had a new “Friday The 13th” movie since the reboot released back in 2009. But Fuller is promising “Crystal Lake” will be “pretty murderous” and obviously jokingly suggested they could run for ten seasons. Fans are already dying to know who they end up casting as Jason’s murderous mother, Pamela Voorhees, who started as the original killer of the franchise before an adult Jason took over in subsequent sequels.