Why ‘Freddy vs. Jason’ Was Worth a Sixteen Year Wait

It took 16 years of anticipation, lots of corporate wrangling and six million dollars in script development, but in 2003 Freddy Kruger and Jason Voorhees finally squared off in one of the most satisfying and successful crossovers in horror movie history.

New Line Cinema, home to the A Nightmare on Elm Street series, and Paramount, original home of the Friday the 13th franchise, first tried to get their famous murdering maniacs together on the big screen in 1987, according to Daily Dead. The studios were unable to strike a deal, and numerous aborted crossover proposals were shot down over the next few years.

In the early ’90s, New Line got the rights to the Jason Voorhees character and teamed up with Sean S. Cunningham, the producer and director of the original Friday the 13th with the goal of making Freddy vs. Jason. However, A Nightmare on Elm Street mastermind Wes Craven instead decided to return to that franchise for a stand-alone Freddy movie, 1994’s Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, delaying Cunningham’s plans.

Read More: ‘Dream Warriors’ Reveals Freddy Krueger’s Backstory

In an attempt to resuscitate Jason’s dormant box office career while awaiting his dream crossover, Cunningham instead helped craft 1993’s rather shitty Jason Goes to Hell, which concluded with a surprise appearance from Kruger, openly teasing a full-fledged matchup.

Despite the fan excitement created by that scene, it still took 10 years for the studio to come up with a Freddy vs. Jason script that did justice to both characters. According the book Crystal Lake Memories, the process included 18 drafts by 12 different writers, at a cost of six million dollars before the cameras ever rolled.

“Originally, New Line was very excited: ‘Whoa! Freddy vs. Jason! That’s going to be kick-ass!,’ development executive Noel Cunningham explained. “But then you really have to sit down and think about it, and ask, “Okay, what happens? You have two main characters – both of whom are villains. One of them [Freddy] doesn’t exist in the real world, and the other one [Jason] doesn’t talk. How do you create a movie around those two characters? It’s damn near impossible.”

The writers finally cracked the code, coming up with a clever scenario in which Freddy had been forgotten, robbing him of the “fear power” he needed to resume his killing spree. He tricks Jason into killing the children on Elm Street instead of the hockey mask-wearing lunatic’s normal Crystal Lake haunt, making Freddy’s hometown think Krueger was back. This creates the required terror for the knife-glove wearing, wisecracking murderer to actually return. Conflict arises when Jason proves to be a bit too good at his job, robbing Freddy of the chance to make his own kills.

The two eventually battle in both Freddy’s dream world and in a climactic real-world showdown. Instead of an early plan to have two separate endings with different victors, Freddy vs. Jason concludes with a pretty clear winner in a very close and bloody fight – until, in true horror movie cliffhanger fashion, the last frames suggest maybe things aren’t what they seem.

Freddy vs. Jason was filmed on three times the budget of any previous Freddy movie, and more than seven times the budget of any of the first nine Jason movies. This allowed director Ronny Yu to deliver some of the most cinematic sequences in either franchise’s history, including a particularly stunning scene where Jason carves up a bunch of teenagers at a rave in a cornfield – despite being covered in flames himself.

Watch the ‘Freddy vs. Jason’ Cornfield Rave Scene

Released on Aug. 15, 2003, Freddy vs. Jason went on to gross $116 million, more than double the earnings of any previous film from either franchise. You would think those numbers would guarantee a sequel, and the idea was of course discussed. Bruce Campbell, star of the Evil Dead franchise, said he was approached about having his character Ash join in on the fun in the follow-up.

“We were like, ‘Great, Ash can kill ’em both.’ There was a long pause, ‘Well actually that’s not something we can entertain.’ And we couldn’t control any other character, only control Ash – what these guys said or what they did and you couldn’t kill either one,” Campbell told ScreenRant. “So right from the start, it’s creatively bankrupt. Economically, now you’re splitting the pot with two other partners – nah. We’re good.” Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash was instead made into a six-part comic book series in 2007. (Spoiler alert: Ash kicked both their asses.)

Jason and Freddy instead went their separate ways, with the franchises both opting for complete reboots. The revamped Friday the 13th arrived first in 2009, with A Nightmare on Elm Street debuting the following year. Both were financially successful, with Friday earning $92 million and Nightmare earning $116 million, but neither Freddy nor Jason has returned to the big screen in over a decade due to separate legal battles over the rights to their characters and franchises.

In 2019 Bloody Disgusting reported that the rights to the Nightmare franchise had reverted back to Craven’s estate, but there has been no word on a new film since that time. A Friday the 13th prequel series named Crystal Lake is scheduled to debut on NBC’s Peacock streaming network on Halloween 2025. In May 2024, Cunningham said that Jason’s return to the big screen was at least several years away.

Watch the ‘Freddy Vs. Jason’ Trailer