'Friday the 13th' Screenwriter Wins Rights Battle Against Producer

[Toby]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/th...oducer-1147991

Victor Miller may be primed to recapture the franchise inside the United States, although a judge's opinion remains sealed with the fate of "Jason" murky.

In a big decision that will bolster the prospects of authors who hope to recapture rights from producers, Friday the 13th screenwriter Victor Miller has prevailed in a legal battle over the franchise.

Producers of the cult 1980 horror film including companies associated with Sean Cunningham filed suit more than a year ago after Miller aimed to take advantage of a provision of copyright law that allows authors to terminate a grant of rights and reclaim ownership 35 years after publishing. The producers alleged that Miller wrote Friday the 13th as a work-made-for-hire after Cunningham came up with an idea to capitalize on the success of the then-recently released horror film Halloween. They asserted that his termination notice was ineffective.

Hmmm interesting turn of events this is.

Though I honestly have no idea what Victor Miller hopes to accomplish if he sells the rights to another studio for an insane amount of money to make up for lost time when he'd been fired or if he's still interested in doing anything with the property if people aren't already tired of Jason already. At least we now know who owns the rights to Jason, so what's going to happen next?

Will he go to Universal Studios who is currently finding their place in the industry with the bizarre direction they're taking with their Monster movies, though having great success with their Chucky movies and potentially Halloween movies?

MGM which is a struggling studio that can barely afford anything to be produced?

Colombia Pictures who are owned by the fucktards at Sony who will make a franchise out of anything for desperate cash-grabbing disasters?

20th Century Fox Studios no longer existing since they're owned by Disney and possibly shutting down their genre film productions?

Paramount who screwed him over in the past?

Warner Brothers who were always being the fuck-awful terrible bastards they are who also killed New Line Cinema?

Either Universal or Netflix I feel could be a good home for Jason while giving Miller the compensation he needs or even creative control if he's even still interested in telling more stories with Jason Voorhees, that's awesome if he does but I'm not sure what they'll do with Jason...maybe we'll finally get that Friday the 13th part 13 movie and then after that I think it's time to do more versus movies which studios won't bother doing because they don't think sharing 50% of the profits is more than nothing, maybe they'll make a nice Friday the 13th TV series that has something to do with Jason this time on a riskier network.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see won't we?

[Lon of the Dead]

Miller deserves the win -- it's well documented that all Cunningham had initially was a title and a poster, and he hired Miller to create a story and characters to go along with it. So while Cunningham always got the credit as the creator of Jason and Friday the 13th, it was always Miller. Now, what was done to the character of Jason after the first film he had no hand in whatsoever, but he still created the character of Jason Voorhees, so he should have been getting a cut of every film since.

At any rate, despite all this, I honestly don't see Miller having much to contribute in terms of future stories. He wrote the first film, yes, but look at what he wrote -- a stock slasher-in-the-woods flick whose biggest selling point was Tom Savini's FX work. The most novel part of the story is Miller's idea to reverse Psycho and instead feature a mother killing at the behest of her dead son, but other than that, from a writing perspective there's nothing of genuine note or anything overly creative about it. I feel Miller hit his creative peak with the Psycho reversal thing, as witnessed by the fact that he's spent the majority of the last four decades since writing soap operas.

So, congrats to him for the winning back the rights, but what the hell is he ever going to do with them? Friday the 13th, Part XIII: Jason Meets All My Children?

[FrighT MasteR]

For da best

[RustedChainsaw]

I dunno. This series has been exhausted. What would be kinda interesting is if they explored aspects of "The New Blood" and brought back Tina, only now as a mother to a teenager. And then have it be like "Doctor Sleep" but with Jason.

[Alaric De Marnac]

There is not much that can be done with the character. And the only other thing Miller wrote that Cunningham directed was a kidnapping thriller back in 1982 called A Stranger is Watching.

[Toby]

Remake Jason takes Manhattan and have the entire movie take place with Jason killing people in Manhattan and I'll be happy.

[TonyVato]

Does it really matter who writes & makes the next shitty film?

[DMHead777]

Does it really matter who writes & makes the next shitty film?

Yes

[El Ahrairah]

Yes

No, it does not.
Whats more important is that a studio stay's out of it.

[DMHead777]

What world do we live in where the writing doesn't matter in a film? Just because it's a F13 movie, it definitely matters who will be writing it. It is important that the studio stays out of it, but that pretty much goes hand in hand. If the studio is involved, the writing and director will be chosen accordingly. If the studio stays out of it then it for sure matters who is at the helm of the next f13

[El Ahrairah]

What world do we live in where the writing doesn't matter in a film? Just because it's a F13 movie, it definitely matters who will be writing it. It is important that the studio stays out of it, but that pretty much goes hand in hand. If the studio is involved, the writing and director will be chosen accordingly. If the studio stays out of it then it for sure matters who is at the helm of the next f13

Its not that difficult to do a F13 movie, they are pretty basic and i can think of dozens of writing and directors off the top of my head who could do them. Hell, the person i would like to see do a new F13 is Mickey Keating as this man seems to have a very good understanding of how to appropriately do classic horror.

The biggest issue the movie faces is the studio stepping in and saying it should PG13 or if they want to make it a franchise or some asshole who does not know how to do 70s and 80s slashers steps in.... We're not trying appropriately do game of thrones season 8 here, the stuff F13 got right early on is now movie making 101 stuff.

[DMHead777]

Its not that difficult to do a F13 movie

It's not difficult to do a F13 movie, but apparently it is. I'd love for the next film to be written and/or directed by someone who has at least seen past F13 films and not some studio that has the paint by numbers slasher formula written on a board. So, I personally think it does matter who writes and directs the next. Even though I'll see it regardless, it will definitely make me more excited and hopefully enjoy it more. F13 is my favorite franchise however, so maybe I am a bit biased.

[El Ahrairah]

It's not difficult to do a F13 movie, but apparently it is. I'd love for the next film to be written and/or directed by someone who has at least seen past F13 films and not some studio that has the paint by numbers slasher formula written on a board.

That's my point, the studio cannot get involved... .and it is also worth mentioning that at this point in the Texas, Halloween, F13, etc. remakes, a paint by numbers old school slasher would be an improvement because of how the studio gets involved with these movies.
Victor Miller's name wont mean much if the studio decides to take over........... Not that it should mean much to begin with since i know you saw Ridley Scott's return to Aliens and Speilburg + George Lucas's return to Indy.

All the movie needs is a studio to hire a solid executive producer who knows he is making a classical slasher film and is good enough to put the right pieces in place.

[DMHead777]

All the movie needs is a studio to hire a solid executive producer who knows he is making a classical slasher film and is good enough to put the right pieces in place.

So, you're saying, is that it kind of matters who writes, directs or produces the film

[El Ahrairah]

So, you're saying, is that it kind of matters who writes, directs or produces the film

Im saying the studio's intentions matter more.
Its not a difficult movie to do, there are a thousand directors and writers who can properly do a F13 movie but that quality will be dependent on if the studio wants to turn it into a PG13 flick or if they will want to focus more on a franchise or world building or whatever nonsense we see out of studio's attempting to turn everything in to a billion dollar IP now.

[DarkSuperman]

Does anyone really care? lol

[strtfghtr]

Good for him, I hope he sells the rights and gets a nice payday. I'd still love to see more F13s