This is a list of all the Friday the 13th related media that was scrapped and canceled.
Canceled Projects[]
Warner Bros. Pictures: 2009ā2010[]
Shortly after the 2009 reboot's theatrical release, producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form expressed an interest in producing another Friday the 13th film, citing the enjoyment they had working on the reboot. In October 2009, Warner Bros. Pictures planned to release the Friday the 13th sequel on August 13, 2010, but on December 10, the studio pulled the sequel from the planned release slot and listed its release as "TBD" (to be determined). Warner Bros. also announced that Damian Shannon and Mark Swift were penning the sequel. In April 2010, Fuller announced on his Twitter page that a sequel to the 2009 remake was no longer in the works, declaring it, "dead ā not happening". In a later interview, Fuller explained that the 2009 reboot was the result of a joint effort between Paramount and New Line Cinema, as both owned portions of the Friday the 13th franchise. With financial problems, both studios were limiting the films they produced each year, opting to produce films carrying lower risks and higher rewards. Accordingly, the companies put Friday the 13th Part 2 on hold in hopes that they would move forward with this next installment when the economy bounced back. Form explained that neither studio would walk away from the sequel's production to allow the other to move forward as the primary producing house, each studio concerned that its players would look like "idiots" should the sequel perform well without its involvement. Form and Fuller also mentioned that the Friday the 13th sequel may be a 3āD film, should it ever again be green-lit for production by the studios.
Paramount: 2013ā2017[]
Shannon and Swift completed the script for the sequel in February 2011, according to Fuller's claim on Twitter. He was ready to begin production, but that New Line Cinema was not. In June 2013, Warner Bros. relinquished its film rights to the Friday the 13th series to Paramount as part of a deal that would allow Warner Bros. to co-produce Interstellar. One week later, Derek Mears revealed that Paramount was working with Platinum Dunes to make a new installment "as fast as possible". David Bruckner was set to direct the next installment of Friday the 13th. Bruckner's original script was co-written with Ian Goldberg and Richard Naing and was a found footage film, as mandated by the studio. After altering the release date numerous times, Paramount set the film for a May 13, 2016 release date. TV writer Nick Antosca was announced to write the script in March 2015. Later in October, Paramount pushed back the film's release date to January 13, 2017. Two months later, Aaron Guzikowski was negotiating a deal to write a new script, but Bruckner, who had purportedly left the project in 2015, was no longer involved as a director. At the end of May 2016, Fuller revealed that the reboot would be an origin story for Jason, and his mother would be in the film. On August 8, Breck Eisner was in talks to direct the reboot. In September, Paramount pushed back the reboot's release date from January 13 to October 13, 2017.
The reboot's working title was reported as Friday the 13th: Part 13, Platinum Dunes was looking for someone to play a young Jason Voorhees, and production to begin in March, slated for October 13, 2017 release date. On February 6, Paramount officially canceled the project, and Paramount assigned the planned October release date to its then-upcoming film, Mother!. On October 10, Shannon and Swift revealed the title of their proposed sequel, Friday the 13th: Camp Blood ā The Death of Jason Voorhees. The rights to the franchise reverted back to New Line/Warner Bros. in 2018.
Lawsuit and other projects: 2018ā2022[]
Victor Miller, who wrote the original Friday the 13th screenplay, asserted that Horror Inc. derived its current copyright to the screenplay from Miller's transfer of copyright to Horror Inc.'s predecessor-in-interest, the Manny Company. Miller sent a Notice of Termination to Horror Inc. on January 26, 2016, purportedly reclaiming his rights to the screenplay and the content contained therein through termination of the transfer of rights he had formerly made to the Manny Company.
Original film producer Sean S. Cunningham claims that Miller wrote the screenplay for Friday the 13th as a work-made-for-hire for the Manny Company. Under copyright law, an employer is considered the statutory author and copyright holder if a work is made in the employee's scope of employment. If, as Cunningham contends, Miller wrote the screenplay as the Manny Company's employee, he never held a copyright to the screenplay to transfer or reclaim. A lawsuit seeking the parties' declaration of rights was filed in a federal court in Connecticut. On September 28, 2018, Miller won the rights against Cunningham. Cunningham appealed, the appeal was withdrawn due to technical reasons, and then reinstated by the deadline of April 12 following year. On September 30, 2021, Miller won the domestic rights for the lawsuit.
In October 2018, LeBron James and his production company SpringHill Entertainment (alongside Vertigo Entertainment) were in talks to co-produce the next film. A month later, screenwriter Clint Ford started writing a prequel screenplay for the franchise titled Friday the 13th: The Beginning. In July 2019, Tom McLoughlin, writer and director of Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, revealed that he authored a speculative script for a sequel film titled Jason Never Dies. McLoughlin confirmed the film would have served as a direct sequel to Jason Lives, ignoring the other films in the franchise. In 2022, McLoughlin also wrote another film with co-writer James Sweet which was a prequel to the 1980 film titled Diary of Pamela Voorhees.