Friday the 13th (film series)

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Movie poster for Friday the 13th (1980)

Friday the 13th is a popular series of slasher films. All of the films feature Jason Voorhees either as the killer or as the motivation or inspiration for the killings.

The original film was directed by Sean S. Cunningham. Afterwards, the franchise was taken up by Frank Mancuso Jr. during its time with Paramount. When it was sold to New Line Cinema, Cunningham returned to oversee the franchise. Victor Miller, the original writer, has not returned and claims to have never seen any of the sequels.

Contents

Series overview

Although each entry in the series is unique, they share many similar qualities. The setting usually consists of isolated campgrounds and suburban neighborhoods. The victims are usually teenagers, or college-aged and frequently those who partake in recreational drug use and sex.

The films

Friday the 13th (
In the first film, a group of teenagers return to a summer camp, Camp Crystal Lake, to prepare it for reopening. Many years earlier, a young boy named Jason Voorhees had drowned at the camp. Shortly thereafter, the two counselors responsible were murdered. One by one, the new teenage counselors are brutally murdered by Jason's mother, Pamela Voorhees.

Friday the 13th Part 2 (
In the second film, it is retroactively revealed that Jason did not drown in the lake and had been living as a hermit in the woods next to the camp for several decades. Having watched his mother's murdering from afar, Jason tracks down and kills the survivor of the first film and resumes his mother's work, hacking and slashing through numerous other victims at the nearby camp.

Friday the 13th Part 3 (
In the third installment (filmed in 3-D), Jason acquired his trademark hockey mask, and machete. Jason found himself slaying a group of teenagers and a motorcycle gang who are spending time at a farmhouse near a lake, the only survivor (Dana Kimmel) kills Jason and as a result, goes insane in one of the most surreal endings in the series

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (
The fourth installment continues Jason's slaughter before he encounters a young Tommy Jarvis, who is the one to end Jason's life. Part 4, simply titled Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter featured up and coming 1980s stars Corey Feldman and Crispin Glover and did extremely well at the box office--so well that it immediately caused Paramount to go back on their plan to have the film serve as the ending to the Friday the 13th franchise.

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (
The fifth film picks up with a mentally troubled adult Tommy at a halfway house when a series of familiar murders start up. However, the killer is not Jason, but a copycat avenging the death of his son. Fans were unhappy with the twist, and the producers decided to bring Jason back in the next film.

Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (
The sixth entry in the series made this clear in its title: Jason Lives. However, since Jason had been supposedly rotting through the years since Part 4, writer and director Tom McLoughlin brought back the monster in a classic Frankenstein approach. Seemingly ignoring the events of the previous film, Jason Lives opens with Tommy digging up Jason's corpse so he could destroy it, only to have the body struck by lightning, which brings Jason back to life. From here on, Jason is now a zombie (though many fans argue that Jason, after his "death" at Camp Crystal Lake, was never human to begin with). The film's use of humor made it slightly more popular with critics and many fans consider it the best in the series.

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (
In this seventh outting in the Friday the 13th series, a telekinetic girl revives him again from the bottom of the lake where Tommy had left him imprisoned. The film, which has been dubbed "Jason Vs. Carrie" by fans, featured the first appearance of Kane Hodder as Jason. Hodder would continue to play Jason in all the following entries in the series until Freddy vs. Jason, and would become the most well known of the actors who have played Jason over the years.

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (
Jason Takes Manhattan, the eighth film in the series, picks up sometime after the end of the previous film, where Jason is resurrected again, this time by a cable tow. From there he boards upon the cruise ship Lazarus where he stays for most of the film, slashing its teenaged passengers who are aboard the vessel for their post-graduation senior class trip. Despite the title, only a third of the film actually takes place in New York.

New Line Cinema buys the franchise

In the early 1990s, New Line Cinema acquired the rights to the Friday the 13th franchise and quickly rushed out plans to revive Jason Voorhees.

In 1991 New Line Cinema obtained the rights to the "Jason Voorhees" character hoping to make one final attempt at cashing in on the movie with 1993's Jason Goes to Hell. New Line has since obtained the rights to the title "Friday the 13th" but has chosen not to use it; on its 2004 boxset, Paramount had to credit New Line for use of the name.

Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday (
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday kills Jason off, and he instead possesses others to continue his rampage. While the film (which only featured Jason in the opening sequence and climactic final fight to the death) is often derided by fans, the final scene of Freddy Krueger's arm grabbing Jason's discarded hockey mask created a great deal of hype towards the possibility of a crossover between the characters.

The road to Freddy vs. Jason

The road to this crossover was filled with problems. The biggest was the numerous scripts which sought to come up with a logical way to have these two monsters meet. Several of the scripts that were written featured Freddy Krueger retroactively inserted into the origin of Jason, including scenarios where Jason was molested as a child by Freddy, who then "drowned" Jason to keep him from telling the authorities. Other scripts featured Jason as the hero of the film, recasting Jason as a tragic figure instead of the monstrous killing machine that he is associated as being.

Ultimately, two scripts were written for the film. The first one had Jason being raised from the dead by a teenage girl using the heart of her dead boyfriend, to save her sister from a cult of psychotic teenagers who worshipped Freddy Krueger and were seeking to raise him from hell via a ritual sacrifice. The second film featured the main male and female leads from Jason Goes to Hell and the "Alice" character from A Nightmare on Elm Street Parts 4 and 5 teaming up on the eve of the year 2000 to rescue their kids from Freddy and Jason, who seek to kill the children so as to bring Satan (who is revealed to be Jason's father) to Earth.

The second script was deemed unfilmable due to costs and the first script was greenlit (and underwent several additional rewrites), but ultimately was abandoned due to the massacre at Columbine High School, which made the film's main plot point about a murderous teenage cult be considered too controversial in the wake of the school shooting. Meanwhile, Sean Cunningham was tired of waiting on the series to stand still, so he ordered a film to be made in the meantime. The idea was developed to set it in the future so as not to hamper the continuity of Freddy vs. Jason. When it was proposed that Jason being alive in the future would reveal who won, Jason X writer Todd Farmer retorted "There are three things in life that are constant: death, taxes, and Freddy and Jason will always come back."

Jason X (
Taking place both in the future and in space, Jason X followed the cryogenically frozen Jason being thawed out in the ship Grendel where he wakes to draw blood. The film went further by climaxing with Jason being turned into what has been dubbed "Uber-Jason" - an indestructible metallic cyborg.

Freddy vs. Jason (

Movie poster for Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

One year later Freddy vs. Jason was finally released. Living out his killings in Hell, Jason "wakes up" in order to kill the children on Elm Street for his mother, who is actually Freddy Krueger needing the large lug to spread fear so that he can regain his powers lost due to a new drug the children are taking. But Jason will not stop killing Freddy's "children," and the two finally duke it out, ending the film with a fairly ambiguous image.

Further films?

Several propositions for a sequel to Freddy vs. Jason have been proposed. Several of these involve additional characters from other horror franchises. The use of Bruce Campbell's Ash Williams character from the Evil Dead franchise had been considered, but this idea was halted when Evil Dead creator and director Sam Raimi decided against it. According to an [interview with Englund] from March of 2006, New Line Cinema has particpated in talks with John Carpenter concerning the use of Michael Myers in a sequel.

Reports in March 2005 suggested that Quentin Tarantino was in talks to direct a twelfth "Jason" film. Tarantino later denied the rumors.

On January 29th, 2006, several websites, including those of Variety, Fangoria, and BloodyNews reported the following:

"New Line Cinema, ending a long period of speculation, is moving forward with a new FRIDAY THE 13TH movie. And it's coming sooner than might have been expected; the studio is aiming to have the film in theaters Friday, October 13th, 2006. Rather than a FREDDY VS. JASON follow-up, the new feature will go back to explore the origins of Jason Voorhees. That's all that's been reported right now, but we'll be looking into this and bringing you updates just as soon as we can."

On February 14th, 2006, according to The Hollywood Reporter, director and producer Michael Bay is scheduled to produce a remake of the original Friday the 13th film, produced by his production company Platinum Dunes. No script has been written nor actors cast.http://www.killermovies.com/f/fridaythe13th/articles/5875.html According to Variety, the film will be directed by Jonathan Liebesman.http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117938669?categoryid=1959&cs=1&query=friday+the+13th&display=friday+the+13th

As per IMDB [Untitled Friday the 13th Movie]

Box office take

Friday the 13th (1980) $39,754,601
Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) $21,722,000
Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982) $33,985,198
(1984) $32,600,000
(1985) $21,930,000
(1986) $19,472,057
(1988) $19,170,001
(1989) $19,343,976
(1993) $15,572,267
Jason X (2001) $13,121,555 (Budget of $11,000,000)
Freddy vs. Jason (2003) $82,490,748, WW Gross - $114,190,748 (Budget of $25,000,000)

Television series

In 2004 official reports from Sean Cunningham stated a proposal to develop a television program based on the films created by Geoff Garrett and Dan Farrands. Entitled Crystal Lake Chronicles, the plot of the series would be focused on a new character, a continuing villain that's connected to Jason and a sort of puppet master of the town of Crystal Lake. The central characters would be a cast of young adults dealing with coming of age issues while living in the town and Cunningham has likened it to Smallville and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Jason himself will have a presence, but only featured occasionally. There also hopes to feature guest appearances from some of the characters of the films. There has been little further news of the project since it was announced, but it appears to be going ahead. Cunningham would be a producer and stated a desire to direct a few episodes.

DVDs

Paramount released the first eight films of the series on DVD, two at a time between 1999 and 2002. While this prospect pleased fans, many were upset that the films were the standard cut, R-rated versions. In addition, the only supplement contained on the discs were a single trailer, but even the last two films were not supplied with this. To further upset fans, the last half of the films were given new art covers, which many feel are inferior to the originals (some of the images in the set were also mixed; for example an image of Roy posing as Jason from Part V made its way onto the back of the box for Part VI with the hockey mask's blue marks repainted as red). For many years, fans made complaints and requests to Paramount to release the uncut versions. When news circulated of a boxset release of the eight films, which may have been as much inspired by fan demand as it was by the success of Freddy vs. Jason, many raised their hopes that the uncut footage would finally be seen. When the boxset, titled Friday the 13th - From Crystal Lake to Manhattan, was released, dismay took hold again as not only were the individual films still the cut versions, but the additional material did not feature much of what fans had hoped to see. While there was appreciation for so much bonus material, the uncut footage was very sparse with what is known to exist, and fans did not like that it was not integrated into the body of their respective films (Arrow in the Head expressed annoyance that many scenes were played along side the theatrical versions http://joblo.com/arrow/reviews.php?id=342).

New Line Cinema, however, have been very generous with their DVDs. Jason Goes to Hell, for instance, carries both the theatric R-rated and unrated director's cut versions in addition to scenes that were filmed for the edited television version. Freddy vs. Jason includes two discs' worth of bonus material. Jason X stands as the slimmest of the three,with only a commentary track,the theatrical trailer and two documentaries.

Books

Six of the eleven films have been novelized: Friday the 13th, Part 2, Part 3 (twice by two different authors), Jason Lives, Jason X, and Freddy vs. Jason. It is worth noting that while Jason X was released before Freddy vs. Jason, it was not novelised until 2005, accompanied by a set of books from [Black Flame] that served as sequels to Jason X. They are The Experiment, Planet of the Beast, and Death Moon. They were released around the same time with four other original books: Church of the Divine Psychopath, Hell Lake, Hate-Kill-Repeat, and The Jason Strain. A fifth book, Carnivals of Maniacs, is scheduled for June, 2006. Their place within the continuity of the films is not specified though all of the covers feature Jason as seen in Jason X pre-UberJason and appear to be set before the events of the film. Hell Lake is specifically stated as having begun on Friday 13th January 2006, and reference is made in Hate-Kill-Repeat to Jason's confrontation with Tina Shepard, and the conclusion of the novel appears to lead in to Jason's 'death' at the hands of the FBI at the start of . These are not the first books based on, but independent of the continuity of the films. In 1994, Eric Morse wrote four young adult books: Mother's Day, Jason's Curse, The Carnival, and Road Trip. The books did not actually contain Jason himself but instead used Jason's evil life force to possess several people, with his hockey mask being the source of the power.

Comic books

Since New Line Cinema's acquisition of the franchise, several Friday the 13th comic books, featuring Jason, have been published by Topps Comics and, most recently, Avatar Press.

Sources

External links

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