The Announcement Horror Fans Have Been Waiting For
Seventeen years is a long time to sit on a franchise. The last Friday the 13th film hit theaters in 2009, and since then, Jason Voorhees has been locked away — not by chains or prison cells, but by courtrooms, competing rights holders, and Hollywood red tape thick enough to stop a machete cold. That era just ended.
On Friday, March 13 — the date practically chose itself — original director Sean Cunningham confirmed to TMZ that a completed treatment for Friday the 13th Part 13 exists. Not a pitch deck. Not a vague “we’re exploring options.” A finished treatment for an “old school” Jason movie, described in terms that suggest no interest in reinventing the wheel.
Cunningham at 84, Still Swinging
Cunningham co-created the franchise and holds a significant stake in its rights, which makes his public declaration meaningful. He’s not a peripheral figure cheerleading from the margins — he’s one of the people whose signature a studio needs. His description of the franchise’s core is blunt: the whole thing runs on “the fear of untimely death.” He added, with some self-awareness, that at 84, he’s too old to worry about that personally.
He’s searching for a young writer to convert the treatment into a full screenplay, with plans to serve as executive producer. He called himself a “cheerleader” for the project. That’s a specific word choice from a man who has been doing this since 1980 — and it suggests someone genuinely energized, not just lending his name to something he expects to quietly disappear.
