Friday the 13th TV series in development at The CW

Last Updated on July 22, 2021

Sean S. Cunningham, director of the original FRIDAY THE 13TH and producer of the sequels from JASON GOES TO HELL on, has been trying to get a television series based around the town of Crystal Lake and the mythology of Jason Voorhees off the ground for years, and now that series is closer to happening than ever.

Mark Pedowitz, head of The CW, has announced that the network has started developing the series with Steven Long Mitchell and Craig W. Van Sickle, writers whose partnership goes back to a 1984 episode of THE LOVE BOAT. Mitchell and Van Sickle have written for a lot of television shows in the last thirty-one years, including MURDER, SHE WROTE; 24; and STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS. In 1990 they wrote the feature film SKI PATROL and in 1996 created the TV series THE PRETENDER. 

While the series is in development at the network, the next FRIDAY THE 13TH movie is still in development at Paramount, aiming for a May 13, 2016 release, but the concept of the series will keep it from clashing with whatever goes on in the movie(s): earlier this year, Cunningham said the TV show would be set in a reality where the FRIDAY THE 13TH films exist as movies inspired by the case of a backwoods serial killer named Jason Voorhees who has long been terrorizing the "real" town of Crystal Lake. This approach has been confirmed by Steven Long Mitchell in an interview with LegionofLeia in which the writer also described the tone of the series as a cross between "the first season of TRUE DETECTIVE and TWIN PEAKS on acid".

The official synopsis:

Reimagined as a sophisticated, horror/crime thriller, Friday the 13th is about the ongoing quest of a detective’s search for his missing brother that is somehow tied to Jason Voorhees, a long thought dead serial killer who has now returned to wreak havoc in the new Crystal Lake. The masked Jason is being reimagined with a stronger feel of grounded reality.

Cunningham will executive produce the show with Mitchell, Van Sickle, and Randall Emmett, George Furla, and Mark Canton of Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films.

While I'm always up for (more like desperately craving) more FRIDAY THE 13TH, I am a bit worried by this meta approach, largely because I hope the character of Jason will still be recognizable on the show. Jason is my favorite horror icon and I'll be tuning in to see more of him, not some backwoods guy who just happens to have his name.

Heidi Kozak, FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII – THE NEW BLOOD