Though it doesn’t seem to be something we’ll ever see come to fruition, legendary horror author Stephen King says he wants to write a novel based onFriday the 13thfranchise killer Jason Voorhees. Ever since the very first movie in the series, Jason has been getting seemingly killed off for good, only to show up in the sequel. Fascinated by the hockey mask-wearing killer’s apparent immortality, King took to Twitter to pitch his idea for aFriday the 13thstory.
“The best novel idea I never wrote (and probably never will) is I JASON, the first-person narrative ofJason Voorhees, and his hellish fate: killed over and over again at Camp Crystal Lake. What a hellish, existential fate!” King writes on Twitter. It’s a really interesting concept, as even after eleven Jason movies and aNightmare on Elm Streetcrossover, we still haven’t seen a movie that’s actually from Jason’s point of view. Wouldn’t it be intriguing to know what’s really going on in the mind of an undead maniac, doomed to roam the abandoned campgrounds where he died as a child?
Still, while it’s a fun idea, we shouldn’t count on seeing Stephen King’sFriday the 13thhitting bookstores anytime soon. In a follow-up tweet,Stephen Kingadmits that legal complications would likely prevent such a book from ever being written. “Just thinking about the legal thicket one would have to go through to get permissions makes my head ache,” King notes. “And my heart, that too. But gosh, shouldn’t someone tell Jason’s side of the story?”
While Jason has been in more movies than most of his horror genre contemporaries, the pop culture icon is still shrouded in mystery. Why is it that he keeps coming back? He is clearlypowered by some kind of paranormal forces, but what exactly is fueling this is unclear. PerhapsJason Goes to Helldirector Adam Marcus came the closest to providing an explanation, revealing in an interview with Horror Geek Life in 2017 that he believed Jason was in fact a “Deadite” from theEvil Deaduniverse, and that his mother had revived him using black magic. Marcus also included references in the movie alluding to this origin story.
When we last saw Jason Voorhees, he was played by Derek Mears as heslaughtered many teenagersin 2009’sFriday the 13thremake. Paramount Pictures had planned to film the next movie in the series in 2017, though the studio balked and cancelled its production based on the failure ofRingsat the box office. AsFriday the 13th: The Gamebecame a big hit, followed by the record-setting success of David Gordon Green’sHalloweenreboot in 2018, it’s pretty clear that perhaps Paramount made the wrong choice.
In any case, we’re probably not going to be getting any newFriday the 13thmovies (or Stephen King novels) anytime soon, based on the ongoing legal drama surrounding the rights to the series.Friday the 13th Part 3star and entertainment lawyer Larry Zerner has previously speculated that a final decision in that case could be reached as early as this month, but there’s been no major updates since. Hopefully, that day will come sooner than later so we can finally get Jason back on the big screen. This news comes to us fromStephen King on Twitter.
