When it comes to horror movie franchises, Friday the 13th is one of the most famous in the world. For well over 30 years, masked killer, Jason Voorhees, has gone on to strike fear in the hearts of countless people. In addition to the first movie, there have been 11 others. The most recent, Friday the 13th, was released in 2009 and lots of fans are looking forward to another. As with any other long-running franchise, however, most people feel that the very first installment was the best. No one feels this way more than the writer of the original film, Victor Miller. He isn’t a fan of the sequels at all. Some people lay me quick to assume that he’s just hating because the franchise went on to be so successful without him, but that doesn’t seem to be the case at all. Keep reading to find out why Victor Miller hates the Friday the 13th sequels.
What Victor Miller Has To Say About The Sequels
When Victor Miller wrote the screenplay for Friday the 13th, he probably had no idea that it would go on to spearhead nearly a dozen other movies. While there are lots of people who would be very flattered by the fact that they created something that has lasted so long, Miller feels differently because he doesn’t believe the following movies align with his original vision. According to Screen Rant, here’s why Victor Miller doesn’t like any of the Friday the 13th sequels:
“To be honest, I have not seen any of the sequels, but I have a major problem with all of them because they made Jason the villain. I still believe that the best part of my screenplay was the fact that a mother figure was the serial killer—working from a horribly twisted desire to avenge the senseless death of her son, Jason. Jason was dead from the very beginning. He was a victim, not a villain. But I took motherhood and turned it on its head and I think that was great fun. Mrs. Vorhees was the mother I’d always wanted—a mother who would have killed for her kids.”
Why Victor Miller Only Wrote The First Movie
Miller’s reasoning actually makes a lot of sense, and it raises an interesting point about the franchise. How did they make almost a dozen movies based on a murderer who isn’t even alive? In reality, there are a lot of things in scary movies that don’t make sense, but this has probably been extremely frustrating for Victor Miller. By now, you’re probably wondering why Victor only wrote the original movie. The answer is actually quite simple: he wasn’t invited to write for any of the subsequent movies.
During an interview with Vice, Victor said, “They told me I was too expensive to write the sequel because sequels have to be made cheaper than the previous one. And I went, “Oh. OK.” What did I know? I’d never written a hit movie before.”
Will There Be Another Friday The 13th Movie?
It’s been more than 10 years since the last Friday the 13th movie, and lots of people are wondering what the hold up is. Unfortunately, the reality is rather complicated. One of main reasons there hasn’t been another movie is the fact that Victor Miller and Sean S. Cunningham, the director of the original movie, have been stuck in a heated legal battle. Victor has been attempting to gain the legal rights to the movie, but the case has been going back and forth for several years.
Initially, a judge ruled that the rights belong to Miller, however, the ruling has since been overturned. The final ruling will come down to whether or not Miller was technically an employee or an independent contractor when he wrote the script. If he was an employee, he will not own the rights. The situation is even more complicated by the fact that Friday the 13th has belonged to more than one production company over the years.
On top of that, it also seems like the Friday the 13th franchise has run its course. How many more times can people come up with storylines about Jason going on killing sprees before it gets old? There are probably a lot of people out there who would argue that it already has. At the end of the day, the key to any great franchise is knowing when to stop, and it looks like that time may have come for Friday the 13th – at least for the time being.
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