Summary

  • Horror, Inc. announces that they are planning a new Jason Universe within the Friday the 13th franchise.
  • This new universe is said to include entertainment, games, immersive experiences, and merchandise.
  • At the time of writing, no further details are known about any aspect of this universe.

The Friday the 13th franchise has received a new update. The multimedia series began with the 1980 movie of the same name, which followed the doomed counselors working to rehabilitate the closed Camp Crystal Lake and has since expanded to include 12 Friday the 13th movies, an in-name-only television show about cursed antiques, several video games, comics, and more, with the majority of the properties featuring the hockey-masked serial killer Jason Voorhees. The most recently announced installment in the franchise is a planned Peacock prequel series with A24 and Bryan Fuller, though the showrunner recently departed the project.

Per IGN, Horror, Inc. has announced their intention to expand the Friday the 13th franchise into a multi-platform Jason Universe. They have revealed that they are partnering with original screenwriter Victor Miller and executive producer Marc Toberoff for new projects that "will span a wide range of platforms from entertainment, games, immersive experiences, merchandise, and more to be announced throughout 2024." At the time of writing, it is unknown if this universe will involve movies or television shows, finally bringing Jason back to the live-action screen after a long hiatus following his so-far final movie in 2009.

Is A Jason Universe The Right Idea?

The Friday The 13th Franchise Has Had Numerous Issues

Jason Voorhees in the forest in Freddy vs Jason

This news might seem like a boon for the iconic slasher franchise after more than a decade of behind-the-scenes issues that have prevented new projects from being mounted outside of Friday the 13th: The Game. These issues include the aforementioned creative clash over Peacock's Crystal Lake prequel show, but they also include the recently resolved yearslong lawsuit over the domestic rights to the original screenplay, which now belong to Miller as of 2021. However, rushing into a Jason Universe could merely add to the long list of aborted Friday the 13th projects.

Jason and his mask in Friday the 13th 2009
Related
Every Canceled Friday The 13th Reboot Explained

The prequel TV show Crystal Lake will finally bring Friday the 13th back, but this is far from the first time that Jason Voorhees almost returned.

Recent cinema history is littered with cancelled projects in the wake of producers jumping into planned universes with both feet. Although interconnected universes like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and NBC's One Chicago can birth huge hits, attempting to start (or restart) a franchise with an entire universe in mind has failed more often than not. The most notable failure is likely the scrapped Universal Monsters reboot franchise the Dark Universe, but there are similar projects currently being retooled like the DC Extended Universe and Blumhouse's The Exorcist trilogy.

The DC Extended Universe is being rebranded and softly rebooted as the DC Universe beginning with James Gunn's Superman, while the Exorcist: Believer sequel Deceiver was taken off the schedule amid creative restructuring.

It remains to be seen how many, if any, of these new projects intended to expand the Friday the 13th franchise actually come to fruition. However, with this new Jason Universe and Crystal Lake both in various stages of development, it's possible that one or the other will end up producing a major live-action project in the franchise for the first time in many years. The teased upcoming announcements should likely shed more light onto what that might look like in the near future.

Source: IGN