Canceled Friday The 13th Sequel Details Revealed by Original Writers [Exclusive]

Though the Friday the 13th horror movie franchise has finally broken free from the hell of legal rights battles, with a new TV series on the way and a new feature film also finally in the works, fans have been without a trip to Crystal Lake in years. In the late 2000s, the series seemed to be finally on the right path, as the 2009 Friday the 13th remake had brought it back to its slasher roots. Though it became the highest-grossing movie in the series, a sequel never got off the ground, and before it could, the rights situation got started and left Jason on ice for well over a decade.

Ironically, that was the plan for Jason when the sequel for Friday the 13th (2009) was actually being developed. Speaking with ComicBook.com for the new Sam Raimi film Send Help, screenwriters Damian Shannon and Mark Swift opened up about what was going to happen in the sequel they wrote for the film. The pair confirmed that the movie would have been titled “Camp Blood: The Death of Jason Voorhees,” a promise that fans of the series have definitely seen once before. Furthermore, they confirmed that the plot of the sequel would have seen Camp Crystal Lake actually re-opened, something unseen in the films in decades.

Friday the 13th Remake Sequel Details Revealed 17 Years Later

One element that fans know well about the planned sequel to Friday the 13th is that the movie would have been set in the winter, an element that the franchise had never explored in thirty years and across twelve movies (it went to space and even New York before showing a single snowflake). In our conversation, though, they revealed that the snow elements of the film would have only taken up the opening sequence and not actually been the entirety of the movie.

“Winter has never been done in the Friday the 13th franchise, and we’ve always dreamed about it,” Swift revealed. “We want to see visible breath coming through the holes in the hockey mask. We want to see red blood drips in pristine white snow. We want Jason to jab a long sharp icicle through a camp counselor’s eye. In the opening scene, Crystal Lake is frozen solid. Two naughty teens go out onto the frozen ice to play hockey. The puck slides… and stops right on top of what appears to be a dead girl under the ice. It’s Whitney (Amanda Righetti) from our last chapter. Then, on the shoreline, they see an imposing figure who looks like he wants to join them. Only he isn’t holding a hockey stick. It’s a machete.”

As teased by Swift, that opening scene would have not only been a franchise first in the snow but would have also confirmed that Amanda Righetti’s Whitney and Jared Padalecki’s Clay didn’t make it out of the ending of that film alive (though it seems unlikely that the Supernatural star would have reprised his role to appear only as a corpse). Bigger than the winter setting of the opening, though, Shannon and Swift revealed that the sequel would have seen Camp Crystal Lake open for business once again.

Fans of the franchise know that this hadn’t actually been seen in the series…truly ever. Though the very first film in the series was getting ready for the camp to be open, the kids never even actually make it to the camp before the massacre occurs. After that, the films would either use Camp Crystal Lake as a training ground for counselors or simply the setting for various vacation outings, so the film actually opening the camp would have been another franchise first.

“We had a really awesome zipline kill that I always loved,” Shannon teased.

Though fans won’t get to see this specific story from the Friday the 13th franchise, the upcoming Crystal Lake TV series will finally bring the franchise back to life and, seemingly, open the camp. Featuring Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees, and with IT: Welcome to Derry‘s Bradley Caleb Kane serving as showrunner, the hype couldn’t be higher, and our special boy will finally be back.