Originally Posted by
Guy_McNichts
Strap in, 'cause here's the weird double-headed legal drama of Friday the 13th...
In the beginning, Friday the 13th was produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures, and they ran that gravy train all through the 80s until the slasher craze kinda fizzled come the 90s. They didn't want to do anymore, so Sean S. Cunningham--the guy who directed the first movie--bought the rights and brought them over to New Line Cinema to cash in on a prospective Jason Voorhees versus Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Krueger film.
However, Cunningham and New Line only had the rights to the character of Jason Voorhees and his associated lore. The previous movies, including the actual title "Friday the 13th" were sill owned by Paramount. This is why all New Line Jason movies are titled "Jason..." as opposed to Friday the 13th--Jason Goes to Hell, Jason X, and Freddy vs. Jason. This is also why, while Freddy vs. Jason includes flashback clips from previous Nightmare movies, they show nothing from prior Friday movies, and why for a long time if you got a F13 box set, it would only be parts 1-8, but not 9, X, or Freddy vs.
Fast forward some years...Warner Bros. has bought out New Line Cinema and now owns everything they have--including Jason--and they want to capitalize on the brief slasher remake run that started with 2003's Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And it turns out Paramount wants in, too. So, they work out a deal where they co-produce a new Jason movie that gets to be titled Friday the 13th in 2009.
It makes a healthy profit, so naturally, there's immediate talk of making a sequel. And here's where things gets pear-shaped, because although both Warner and Paramount want to make another one, neither wants to share the profits with the other, and neither is willing to just buy-out the other. So, the Friday the 13th franchise basically ends up stuck in a weird stare-down between the two companies, waiting to see who blinks first and sells.
I don't know for certain if this has been resolved yet. And if it has, I don't know who's won. It's worth noting they recently released a F13 box set that includes every movie. Also, Jason did appear alongside other Warner owned IPs in Ready Player One.
Unfortunately, that's not the end of Friday the 13th's legal woes.
As said, although Jason and F13 are or were caught in a stalemate between Warner and Paramount, the actual rights to the IP belonged to Sean Cunningham--who, it's worth nothing, directed only the first movie and had nothing to do with the franchise until he bought the rights from Paramount after 1989's Jason Takes Manhattan.
The script for the first Friday the 13th was written by Victor Miller. Meaning he came up with the idea of Camp Crystal Lake, Jason downing, and his mother going nuts and killing people...basically, the foundation of the franchise. Though paid for the first movie, he believes...since it's gone on to become this decade-spanning franchise worth millions in merchandise among other things...he's owed a cut.
As current owner of the rights, it's on Cunningham to pay him or prove he's not owed a dime. Naturally, Cunningham has been shooting for the latter.
His first argument is that Miller wrote the script as "work-for-hire" and therefore should only have been paid for the only movie he wrote (which he was). Problem is that wasn't put into writing, as at the time, no one thought this movie was going to be any more than a forgettable pot-boiler. So no one was inking out a thorough contract dealing with potential merchandise sales or sequel deals.
His second argument is that, although Miller came up with the backstory of Jason drowning in Crystal Lake and his mother killing people, he had nothing to do with the sequels that had Jason come back to life, wear a hockey mask, and be this hulking brute. Therefore, Cunningham argues, Miller shouldn't receive money for anything related to Jason beyond the first movie.
Fun little aside...it's amusing Cunningham would go for that second argument considering he's had nothing to do with Jason as he's currently known either. He dropped out after the first movie and had nothing to do with the franchise until Jason Goes to Hell years later. Adding to the irony, according to the director of Jason Goes to Hell, one of Cunningham's directives was "get Jason out of the damn mask"...as he apparently hated the hockey mask.
Anyway, this has basically put a complete freeze and anything happening with Friday the 13th. Regardless of who can produce the movies, nothing's getting done until this is settled. This is also why that F13 video game had to shut down even though it was still doing very well and the developers were in the middle of creating DLC.
Last I heard, the courts have ruled in favor of Victor Miller on the grounds that Cunningham can't prove he wrote the first movie as work-for-hire, but Cunningham is appealing.
There's even been suggestion that Cunningham might try to effectively split Jason down the middle in order to make new movies without having to pay Miller. Which would mean having a big dude in a hockey mask, but make no mention of Crystal Lake or Jason's mother or anything Miller actually had a hand in, which...I don't see that flying.
As far as I know, Friday the 13th is still stuck in legal hell. As said, Cunningham is appealing, and even if that fails, they'll need to work out what exactly Miller is owed and what would he get paid for future films.
And this is why we haven't seen a new Friday the 13th movie in over ten years.