Though Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger didn’t go head to head on the big screen until 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason, Paramount Pictures originally had plans to put the hockey-masked killer up against New Line Cinema’s dream demon back when the Friday the 13th franchise was less than a decade old.
Jason’s popular slasher series first hit our screens with 1980’s Friday the 13th, though Voorhees himself didn’t become the main villain until the 1981 sequel. The Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, meanwhile, released its first installment in 1984, and by the time the decade reached its halfway point, Freddy and Jason were two of the biggest names in horror. At the same time, box office profits for Friday the 13th were on the decline, and in an attempt to reverse this trend, Paramount approached New Line with the suggestion that Freddy paid Crystal Lake a visit for Jason’s next film.
The proposed deal was that Paramount would handle domestic distribution while New Line would be in charge of international distribution, but ultimately, the two studios couldn’t come to an agreement. Consequently, the team at Paramount was sent back to the drawing board, and they eventually settled on a premise that was more akin to “Jason vs. Carrie.” The result was 1988’s Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, in which Voorhees faces off against the telekinetic Tina Shepard.
In the years that followed, both franchises yielded a few more films before Freddy vs. Jason finally became a reality in 2003. Jump to the present day, and it’s hard to say when the next Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street movie might go into production, but so long as Krueger and Voorhees remain two of the most notorious figures in pop culture, you can bet that studio heads aren’t going to forget their names.