In 2015, The CW network almost picked up a pilot for a new Friday the 13th series, but ended up passing on Jason Voorhees and siding with another horror adjacent television show that's more on-brand, Riverdale.
Arguably one of the most iconic horror - and movie - franchises of all time, Friday the 13th has been going strong with movies, television, video games, and other merchandising since 1980, when Sean S. Cunningham released the first movie. Jason Voorhees, the franchise's hockey masked and machete-wielding slasher, has also become a horror legend in his own right despite not even being the killer in the first movie. In 2020, he stands amongst others such as Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Ghostface, Leatherface, and Pinhead in terms of sheer recognition that defies genre; even those who aren't horror fans know these killers due to them being solidified as central figures of pop culture.
There was already a Friday the 13th television series before, which ran for three seasons in the late 1980s. However, with the emergence of young adult and teen-oriented horror shows like American Horror Story on FX, Scream on MTV, and Supernatural on The CW in the early 2000s and beyond, there was clear interest in bringing horror to the small screen.
Why The CW Didn't Green-Light A Friday The 13th Series
According to Cinemablend, Sean S. Cunningham spoke to Fangoria about the Friday the 13th TV series that was in the works in 2015, and why The CW would have been the perfect choice. Cunningham's argument that The CW was a great network for genre films - which has been proven through several different superhero styled shows that are a continued success in 2020 - was solid, and the rising interest in horror properties in the mid-2010s supported this fact. While the pilot showed promise, network executives at The CW ended up pulling the plug on Friday the 13th in 2016, stating that there were "better pilots" that had been submitted.
The premise for the show, which was intended to bring a detective into the fold to investigate Camp Crystal Lake before finding himself squaring off with Jason Voorhees, sounded interesting. Even so, network television has to be cautious with many of the elements that the Friday the 13th franchise is known for, such as drugs, sexual content, and violence. There are ways of getting around this; the original 1980 film was relatively tame by modern standards, though future installments featured more creative and violent kills as the series wore on. Still, for a young adult oriented network, considering their demographics, it might have been too much of a risk.
In 2017, Riverdale was released on The CW. While not defined as a horror TV show, the drama - which is based on the Archie Comics - certainly has a horror lean to it. Season 1 plays out like a thriller/murder mystery, opening with the dead of Jason Blossom. Season 2 leans into many horror tropes with the menacing Black Hood. Other elements of the show draw lines between detective thriller, teen drama, and slasher movie, which sounds somewhat like what the Friday the 13th TV show aspired to accomplish once upon a time.