Horror fans can rejoice, as one of the genre’s most iconic franchises is finally taking a big step forward in a way that most fans will probably be excited about. For too long now, the Friday the 13th franchise has been locked in a limbo of rights disputes between Paramount and Warner Bros.; with the two studios poised for a major merger, there’s been renewed effort to get Jason Vorhees back on the screen.
A24 has been first out of the gate with its prequel TV series Crystal Lake, which will stream on Peacock. The show stars Linda Cardellini (Avengers: Age of Ultron, DTF St. Louis) as Pamela Voorhees, Jason’s mother, before a tragic accident at the Crystal Lake summer camp, which transformed the Voorhees family into monstrous killers. Fans have been wondering how soon we could see Crystal Lake premiere on Peacock – and now we know.
It’s been officially announced that Crystal Lake will premiere on Peacock on Thursday, October 15th, smack dab in the midst of Halloween Season. It’s a perfect release date for Peacock and A24 to set, as a much wider range of fans will likely be open and receptive to something new and frightening from a familiar franchise.
Crystal Lake showrunner Brad Caleb Kane has spoken about what this series will be, calling it “a psychological thriller. It’s a paranoid ’70s thriller,” Kane told EW. “It has all of the DNA of a slasher without quite being a slasher. There are rivers of blood in the show. There are very, I think, ingenious kill sequences and deaths and murders, but it’s all done in service of character and theme and place and time.”
Crystal Lake will run for 8 episodes, with Michael Lennox, Celine Held, Logan George, and Quyen Tran all serving as directors. Best of all for Jason Vorhees fans, this show isn’t the only project in the works.
There is a new Friday the 13th movie project currently in development, but no solid vision for the film has been announced yet. Industry insiders, as well as veterans of the franchise, like Friday the 13th co-creator Sean Cunningham, have been sending up signal flares about their own pitches, trying to see if the studio(s) will bite. At the very least, we know that development of the film isn’t just a rumor:
“They are working on it, that I can promise you, because I’ve heard of it and because I have that direct communication with them, it’s there,” Filmmaker Mike P. Nelson (Silent Night, Deadly Night) revealed to SlashFilm last year. “So that’s really happening. And yes, they have reached out [to me about it]. As have other people. I can’t say too much, but I will say that I have given my two cents, I have given them my take, and right now it’s in their court and we’ll go from there.”
Stay tuned to ComicBook Horror for more updates on the Friday the 13th Franchise. Also, discuss what the movie franchise should do next, over on the ComicBook Forum!
Via: Variety
