Movies
Sean S. Cunningham Shares His Thoughts on the Future of ‘Friday the 13th’ and ‘Crystal Lake’
At Silver Scream Con in Worcester, MA this past weekend, Friday the 13th creator Sean S. Cunningham provided an update on the long-gestating TV series, Crystal Lake, including a potential release date.
“Last I heard, they’re talking about shooting it in Australia at the end of this year and releasing on Halloween 2025,” he reveals. “But I’ve heard versions of that story for so long, I don’t put a lot of credibility into it. There’s just so many things that can go sideways.”
He broke down the trials and tribulations the series has faced thus far:
“Some time ago, the rights expired on the original script, so then there became doubt about who owns what after 35 years. That was being worked out by lawyers, and we were trying to figure out what we were going to do. We were trying to do a TV series, which we actually got pretty far down the road on. I was very happy with that. I thought it was going to be a lot of fun, and then the rights thing blew up and the TV series got postponed, and then the pandemic arrived.
“Finally, A24 decided that they would hook up with Peacock and do a Friday the 13th TV series. They were gonna hire Bryan Fuller, a very good writer. In the world of television, the showrunner, the main writer, is the star. That’s the person you have to have complete faith in, because it’s not the ability to write one story; it’s the ability to tell a new story every week. That’s very, very hard, and very few people can do it.
“Bryan got the job, and it was greenlit. It was going forward, they started to set up the writers’ room, and they didn’t like the road he was going down. They felt it was gonna be too dark. So they abandoned it and then hired another writer [Brad Caleb Kane].”
On the subject of the franchise’s kill scenes, Cunningham detailed a sequence from the scrapped TV series that predates the “Crystal Lake” project that’s currently moving forward at A24 and Peacock with Brad Caleb Kane serving as the new showrunner.
“A bunch of kids – 8, 9 years old – are out on the ice playing peewee hockey. One kid does a breakaway, skates down, and who’s in the net but Jason. He tries to shoot, Jason blocks it. The kid who’s trailing scores the goal, and they go, ‘Yay!’ And Jason’s pissed,” he chuckles.
“He starts chopping at the kids and the ice starts to crack, and then we cut out of that. The explanation would be that kids in the high school had shot this video as a joke, and it was going viral on the internet. But I thought it was so silly and so much fun. I wish we’d gotten a chance to shoot it.”
Cunningham also teased a new video game. “There always seems to be a desire to have another Friday the 13th movie, which would have a distinct life from the TV series. For sure, Jason’s gonna show up in more video games. We had a really nice run with the first video game [2017’s Friday the 13th: The Game].
“There’s more to come,” Cunningham adds.
Sunrise Films has announced the official North American release of William Bagley‘s horror comedy Hold the Fort, and it’s accompanied by an energetic new trailer.
Hold the Fort debuts on digital platforms on June 23.
In the film, “Lucas and Jenny think their life is finally coming together when the couple become homeowners. Little do they know that their new house comes with a big catch. Lucas and Jenny soon find themselves in a fight for their lives when they become trapped in a battle between their Homeowners Association and an onslaught of monsters from hell. The horror-comedy takes the timely concern of home-ownership and wraps this up in an entertaining action-packed thrill ride.“
Watch the new trailer below, which introduces one wild HOA gathering during an equinox. Things get bloody fast.
Chris Mayers (Adult Swim Yule Log), Haley Leary (“The Walking Dead”), Levi Burdick, and Julian Smith star.
William Bagley writes and directs, in addition to producing with Smith, Matt Dodd, Luke Williams, and Tim Reis (Adult Swim Yule Log).
Ahead of the release, Bagley said, “My goal with this film was to make a hilarious, fast-paced thrill ride while also telling a great story with heart. Hopefully, through all the blood, laughs, fights, and gags, you leave the film feeling inspired to tackle whatever life throws at you.“
Hold the Fort premiered at Fantasia last summer before going on to play FrightFest London, Toronto After Dark, and Beyond Fest.
I wrote in my review, “It’s an infectiously charming assemblage of jokes and monster vignettes bound together by a barebones plot with not much on its mind beyond delivering an entertaining time.”
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