The Friday the 13th franchise has now been dormant for over a decade, but that doesn’t mean attempts haven’t been made to revive it, and several images have surfaced showing how Jason would have looked in the cancelled movie and TV show.
They consist of molds, models and make-up tests of the silent and relentless killer that suggest that he would be seen more than infrequently without his iconic hockey visor, his countenance suitably hideous and more than the equal of the brief flashes of his face than have been seen over the years. Also shown is Jason’s mask and machete, both looking aged and worn with use, indicating just how long he’s been stalking unsuspecting campers at Crystal Lake. It isn’t made clear which were intended for the film and which were for the series, but all look suitably sinister and would doubtless have greatly contributed to its visual aesthetic.
Despite a lackluster response from critics and audiences, the 2009 reboot made $93 million against a budget of a mere $19 million. Attempts to produce a sequel continually faltered though first due to an economic downturn, then the project never moving past a script phase, and most recently an ongoing legal battle over copyright, in which the original movie’s writer Victor Miller is trying to gain the rights to the property from producer Sean S Cunningham.
The planned TV series, meanwhile, was separate from the late-‘80s show Friday the 13th: The Series, which was a fantasy horror saga about a pair of cousins attempting to reclaim cursed antiques from their reticent owners, and had no connection to the movies save the title cynically utilized for brand recognition. Instead, Crystal Lake Chronicles was to focus on a group of teenagers living in the notorious area and act as a coming of age story with supernatural elements in the vein of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Smallville, where Jason himself would be a background character.
Until the aforementioned lawsuit is settled though, there will be no more Friday the 13th on our screens, big or small. However, when it does resurface as surely as its infamous killer, we can rest assured that at the very least, its look will not be something we have to worry about.