Horror is hot right now thanks to streaming services like Hulu banking on new additions to classic franchises like Halloween and Hellraiser. Now there’s another hot property on the way: a prequel Friday the 13th series from Peacock called Crystal Lake.
Bryan Fuller (Hannibal) is set to direct, with A24 producing. Because it’s a prequel, there are a lot of questions – mostly about whether Jason Voorhees will even be in the thing. Fuller recently spoke to Fangoria about what the show might look like.
When asked about the locales for the new show, and what characters might appear, Fuller explained that the universe is his oyster.
“Everything. We can use everything. We can go to Hell, we can go to space. That’s not to say that we will do those things … although if we do go 10 seasons, I will be lobbying hard to go to space.”
Of course, Jason already went to space in Jason X, so here’s hoping we don’t tread familiar ground. Not to worry though, as Fuller explained that “we have the rights to do everything underneath the Friday the 13th umbrella.”
However, the movie rights are “completely different thing,” he said.
“They are tied up at New Line and are super, super messy and probably won’t be untangled anytime soon, but as far as us chickens in the television industry, uh, roost, we have access to anything and everything that Friday the 13th has done up until this point.”
What about the timeline? Fuller was vague: “… I would say it’s less a prequel series than a … pre-remake-uel series.” When asked to elaborate, he declined. As for the naysayers complaining about how it’s a prequel, Fuller said he went through a similar thing when he worked on Hannibal.
“I encountered this when Hannibal was announced. Some of those tweets looked like copy-and-paste jobs from 10 years ago. So, part of me is sorta leaning back with my arms across my chest saying, “Wait and see,” and the other part is more like, “Well, folks like that may not have to make a living with their imaginations and what they can imagine must be very disappointing to them.”
Fuller also shared that he chose to go with Peacock because “they blew every other competitor out of the water.”
“There was a bidding war on this, and they came in strong and gave us a full-season commitment with a huge penalty if we don’t do a second season. So it’s kind of a two-season commitment, but really just the first-season commitment. We’re going to have roughly five times the per-episode budget that we had on Hannibal.”
The new show, he said, will be “pretty murderous.” We’ll keep you posted on this as it moves along.