It was back in October 2017 that we officially passed the previous record for the longest stretch of time between Friday the 13th movies, which had long been held by the 8 years, 8 months, 2 weeks between Jason Goes to Hell and Jason X. And now today, Thursday, February 13th, 2020, marks exactly ELEVEN YEARS since Jason was last seen on the big screen.
Yes, today is the eleven year anniversary of the Friday the 13th remake, which brought Jason back into theaters for the first time since Freddy vs. Jason on February 13th, 2009.
As much as I personally feel the Friday the 13th remake is a damn good Friday the 13th movie, I’m having a hard time celebrating that anniversary. Mostly, I’m just really sad.
Speaking of anniversaries, the Friday the 13th franchise at large celebrates its 40th anniversary this coming May, and it’s crazy to think that it was once a franchise that released a new film every single year. Between 1980 and 1989, a whopping EIGHT Friday the 13th films were rapidly written, shot and released, quickly establishing Jason as a new horror icon.
And yet here we are, eleven years since Jason’s most recent killing spree and the franchise is showing no signs of life. As most fans are aware, the franchise is currently dead in the water thanks to a messy legal battle between Sean Cunningham and Victor Miller, the original film’s writer, which has torn the rights in half and spelled the doom Crazy Ralph once warned us of.
Needless to say, new movies cannot and will not be made until everything is figured out. And the legal issues have been impacting everything from video games to toys as well.
It’s interesting that today marks the eleventh anniversary of the Friday the 13th remake because today is also a big day for the franchise in a whole different way. Long story short, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has been tasked with deciding if Victor Miller retains ownership of the original film’s script (back in 2018, a trial judge had ruled that the U.S. rights go to Miller after all these years under the Copyright Act’s termination right) or if those rights will revert back to Sean Cunningham/Horror Inc., and oral arguments in the case actually took place earlier today. At the time of writing this article, we’re waiting for audio from today’s arguments to be made public, with entertainment lawyer Larry Zerner promising a breakdown on Twitter.
No matter what the Second Circuit decides, it seems pretty clear that there’s still a very long road ahead. Jason will be back, we can be pretty sure of that, but for now he’s still chained to the bottom of Crystal Lake. How many more years will pass before he comes up to the surface once more? Is thirteen Jason’s lucky number here? Would be rather fitting, would it not?
No matter when it arrives, the next movie will be the franchise’s thirteenth.
