Peacock has dropped a Halloween treat for Friday the 13th fans.
The streamer confirmed Monday it has ordered a new Friday the 13th prequel series called Crystal Lake. Bryan Fuller, who developed NBC's Hannibal, will executive produce the show, which is coming from A24, the studio behind horror hits like Hereditary and X. Crystal Lake is described as an "expanded prequel," though no plot details were revealed.
The announcement came after years of the Friday the 13th franchise remaining dormant, largely due to a legal battle concerning who owns the rights. Sean S. Cunningham, director of the original film, and Victor Miller, the first movie's screenwriter, have been fighting in court for years, and in 2021, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Miller can reclaim the rights to his screenplay in the U.S.
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Miller is producing Crystal Lake, but he notably doesn't have the rights to anything beyond the original movie, Variety reports. That would suggest Crystal Lake can't include Jason Voorhees wearing a hockey mask — e.g. the most iconic element of Friday the 13th — because adult Jason wasn't introduced until Friday the 13th Part 2, and his hockey mask wasn't introduced until Part 3.
Instead, the villain of the original Friday the 13th was Jason Voorhees' mother, who was driven insane after Jason apparently drowned in Crystal Lake as a kid. Fuller tweeted an image of Mrs. Voorhees on Monday, suggesting she could be the focus of Crystal Lake. Cunningham, who isn't involved in the Peacock series, still owns the adult Jason character, Bloody Disgusting notes.
This will be the first new Friday the 13th entry since a remake in 2009. But for fans who have hoped the adult Jason might return and don his iconic hockey mask on the big screen once more, the wait continues.
