Movies
Breaking: The ‘Friday the 13th’ Case Is [Allegedly] Officially Over and Victor Miller Once Again Owns His Screenplay
It’s been a long road but it appears we’re heading toward some sort of closure in regards to the Friday the 13th rights battle.
Friday the 13th Part 3 star and entertainment lawyer Larry Zerner has been keeping fans updated on the progress of the messy legal battle over the franchise’s rights that’s pitted Sean Cunningham/Horror Inc. against original screenwriter Victor Miller.
According to Zerner, the case is officially over as Cunningham/Horror Inc. has failed to file a cert petition by the 4 pm deadline. As of this writing, Victor Miller is allegedly (still) the official rights holder to the original Friday the 13th screenplay (in the US only).
It’s 4 pm and I still don’t see a cert petition filed with the Supreme Court in the Friday the 13th case. What does this mean? Well, it means the case is officially over and Victor Miller owns the rights to his screenplay in F13 (but only in the US). 1/
— Larry Zerner (@Zernerlaw) December 30, 2021
What does this mean for the future of the Friday the 13th franchise and Jason Voorhees? It’s a bit complicated, but the two sides working on or having reached a resolution would be the best-case scenario for horror fans.
If the two sides fail to reach any sort of agreement, here’s how the rights break down, according to Zerner:
Can Victor and Sean just each make their own separate movies? Not really, because Victor only owns US rights and only to the first script and Sean owns adult, hockey mask-wearing Jason but can’t legally use him in a movie without Victor’s permission. It’s complicated. 4/
— Larry Zerner (@Zernerlaw) December 30, 2021
To put it simply, my understanding is that Victor Miller could allow a studio to produce a Friday the 13th remake, but it could only be released in the United States. What’s new to this writer is that Sean can’t legally use Jason Voorhees in a movie without Victor’s permission and that truly is crippling.
The hope here is that the two parties can come to some sort of agreement and move forward together, otherwise, it’s going to be exceptionally hard to find a workaround to the legal ramifications.
If you’d like to learn more about the entire case, you can start here or get a more recent recap by clicking here. We’ll report back with any updates as soon as they come in. Below, you can listen to Zerner break down the case himself on a past episode of our very own horror franchise podcast, Halloweenies.
After pulling in $28 million at the worldwide box office this month, director (and star) Dev Patel’s critically acclaimed action-thriller Monkey Man is now available to watch at home.
You can rent Monkey Man for $19.99 or digitally purchase the film for $24.99!
Monkey Man is currently 88% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with Bloody Disgusting’s head critic Meagan Navarro awarding the film 4.5/5 stars in her review out of SXSW back in March.
Meagan raves, “While the violence onscreen is palpable and painful, it’s not just the exquisite fight choreography and thrilling action set pieces that set Monkey Man apart but also its political consciousness, unique narrative structure, and myth-making scale.”
“While Monkey Man pays tribute to all of the action genre’s greats, from the Indonesian action classics to Korean revenge cinema and even a John Wick joke or two, Dev Patel’s cultural spin and unique narrative structure leave behind all influences in the dust for new terrain,” Meagan’s review continues.
She adds, “Monkey Man presents Dev Patel as a new action hero, a tenacious underdog with a penetrating stare who bites, bludgeons, and stabs his way through bodies to gloriously bloody excess. More excitingly, the film introduces Patel as a strong visionary right out of the gate.”
Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, Monkey Man stars Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.
Monkey Man is produced by Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions.
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