After over a decade stuck in a place worse than Hell or New York (legal disputes), the Friday the 13th franchise will return later this year as Crystal Lake, a prequel series coming to Peacock this fall. This marks the first time horror fans will revisit the world of Jason Voorhees since the poorly reviewed (but financially lucrative) 2009 reboot, and potentially another attempt to reset the canon of this trailblazing slasher franchise.
Crystal Lake takes place before the original Friday the 13th movie and stars Linda Cardellini as Jason’s mother, Pamela Voorhees. Child actor Callum Vinson is also set to play a recurring role as Jason himself (Vinson will also star in Amazon’s God of War adaptation as Atreus). Rounding out the cast are William Catlett (Black Lighting) as new character Levon Brooks, Devin Kessler as Briana Brooks, Cameron Scoggins as “Dorf” (presumably Officer Dorf from Friday the 13th), and Gwendolyn Sundstrom as Grace. Plot details are under wraps, but the show will presumably reveal new details about Pamela’s life before the death of her son and help explain how she became — spoiler alert for a 46-year-old movie — the killer in the original movie.
While Hollywood has continued to milk other classic horror properties like Halloween and Scream, Friday the 13th has been stuck in legal limbo after a dispute over who owned the rights to the franchise. (The Nightmare on Elm Street series faced similar issues until the rights reverted to creator Wes Craven’s estate in 2019, though attempts to revive Freddy Krueger are currently stalled out.) As a result, we haven’t seen Jason onscreen since that 2009 movie, which most horror fans would probably prefer to pretend never happened. Before that, the early 2000s saw Jason go to space and fight Freddy Krueger.
Some version of Crystal Lake has been in development since 2003, though the concept has changed dramatically since then. The original pitch from Sean S. Cunningham (who produced and directed the original Friday the 13th) took place in the same area as that cursed summer camp and focused on a town where everyone was aware of the events of those movies. The story would have focused on local teens, with Jason as a minor character. There was even a pilot episode shot for The CW, but the network passed and the project died.
In the 2020s, A24 picked up the rights and tapped Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller as showrunner. A couple of years later, however, Fuller was replaced by Bradley Caleb Kane, whose writing credits include It: Welcome to Derry and Fringe. Kane is still working as showrunner on the series.
And if all goes well, we’ll finally see some version of Jason onscreen again later this year, even if it isn’t the knife-wielding, hockey-mask wearing one we’re used to. Crystal Lake is coming to Peacock on Oct. 15.
About the Author
