Movies
‘Friday the 13th’ Legal Battle Rages On as Sean Cunningham’s Appeal Has Been Reinstated
As always, let’s quickly recap where we are and how we got here…
After exercising his legal rights, a judge ruled last year that writer Victor Miller is the sole owner of the original Friday the 13th screenplay (in the United States only, oddly enough), but the judge declined to make a ruling on who currently owns the character of “adult Jason Voorhees,” who of course didn’t actually appear within the franchise until the second film.
The rights are split, and the two sides haven’t come to any agreements – Victor Miller, the original film’s writer, and Sean Cunningham, the film’s director and the franchise’s owner. Long story short, new Friday the 13th/Jason movies will likely not be made until a deal is reached.
Subsequently, Friday the 13th director Sean Cunningham filed a notice of appeal, but more recently, the withdrawal of Cunningham and Horror Inc’s appeal was filed (for technical reasons). If the appeal was going to be reinstated, it had to be reinstated by April 12th, and we’ve just learned this week that Cunningham’s appeal was indeed reinstated last week.
What does that mean? For starters, we’re no closer to a deal being reached – we had heard, it’s worth noting, that a deal almost closed last month, but it fell apart over a deal point.
Entertainment lawyer/Friday the 13th Part 3 star Larry Zerner responded to this latest update:
“This isn’t the end of the world, but it is disappointing. It may just mean that they need additional time to get a deal done.”
We had *hoped* that the appeal would not be reinstated, and that Cunningham/Miller would instead reach some kind of agreement that would allow for the Friday the 13th franchise to return in such a way that would benefit both creators of the iconic property. Alas, it looks like the messy battle will drag on, which could mean no Jason for many more years to come.
As Zerner notes, “I [think] that Victor Miller would probably win the appeal, but I don’t want to wait another two years before they can start making a new Friday the 13th movie.”
At this time, it’s now been TEN YEARS since the last Friday the 13th movie.
Up next, a phone mediation has been scheduled for May 7th. Stay tuned.
Before updating the video nasty Faces of Death, director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei explored the dangers of online life in tech-thriller Cam, their feature debut that was acquired by Netflix in 2018 after making waves on the festival circuit.
At the end of last year, the Netflix exclusive quietly departed from the streaming platform, left without another streaming home.
It’s not an isolated story; Mike Flanagan’s Hush also left streaming entirely for a period until it was finally picked up on both physical media and other streaming services.
While the tech-thriller currently isn’t available to watch on Netflix, Tubi, Hulu, or any other platforms, that’s not a problem for Cam thanks to a very cool move by Goldhaber: the director has made his breakout film accessible to watch online for free via his website.
As his site notes: “CAM is unfortunately not currently available to view on any platforms, so you can watch it here if you like :).“
No subscriptions or fees necessary, just hit play.
Cam follows Alice (Madeline Brewer), who works as an online cam girl obsessed with her ranking on the cam site. The higher her ranking goes, the more it draws unwanted attention, and Alice soon finds herself replaced on her own show with a doppelganger.
Written by Mazzei, a former camgirl, it uses the horror thriller premise to examine the life of a sex worker; Alice’s career ambition is directly at odds with the shame it brings to her family, and how she tries to spare them from it by keeping them in the dark. It only compounds her danger when the doppelganger enters the equation in Goldhaber’s engaging thriller.
For a deep dive into the treacherous world of Cam, listen to Horror Queers’ episode on it now.
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