Spooktober! Retrospective: How Did Freddy vs. Jason Even Get Made?

(One's funny, one's silent, let's pit em against each other!)

Hello friends, today, since I was busy playing a bit of DnD yesterday, is going to be a bit different than a couple days ago. You might have noticed I skipped a day, that's because I couldn't find a Friday the 13th film to review like I had originally planned to watch, for free at least. So, fast forward to today, and I'm combining two horror icons in this article. Freddy Krueger, and Jason Voorhees, two of cinema's horror legends. These two names are more synonymous with the genre than just about any other icons I can think of at the moment. New Line Cinema has been lovingly referred to as the house that Freddy built in the past, I think that about tells you what you need to know about how revered he is. As for Friday the 13th, there hasn't been a film that succeeded in that franchise for a while now, but I think if they actually took the time to write a good remake or reboot it could launch again as a successful series. Unfortunately ,at the moment, there's a rights battle going on over that series, so it may be a long long time before that day comes. So, since today is about Freddy and Jason, let's dive a bit into what makes them so iconic.

(Big, mean, good at recreational activities.)

Jason, what can I say about this maniacal man. His name is probably one of the widest known names in all of horror, beyond that even, one of the most recognizable names in cinema I'd say. I've not met a single person who doesn't know who Jason Voorhees is, even if they haven't seen a single Friday the 13th film. Indeed, it seems even less people are watching cheesy 80's slasher flicks to this day, but they still know the names of the icons because you can't avoid seeing them on the internet someday. That is the connected society we live in, brands are known by everyone, even non-fans. Nonetheless, this isn't an article about that, this is about Jason. Jason is just a very unlucky kid who had some very uncaring counselors who neglected the poor lad drowning while they were busy fucking in a lakehouse nearby. Basically, he comes back for revenge, and because the soul of his mother beckons him to. He's not even in Friday The 13th Part 1, some people mistakenly think he is (because they obviously haven't seen it), but he doesn't show up until Part 2. It's also not until Part 3 that he dons the iconic hockey mask look everyone now knows him for. Jason has been around since the 80's, killing campers, counselors, and people who are unfortunate enough to live in Manhattan or go to space. He's been everywhere, done everything, killed everyone, slashed his way into the hearts of millions. The damn guy has even been to Hell and come back unscathed! He is immortal, he is like time itself, a ghost in the night that comes to take victims who misbehave on his hunting grounds. That iconic sound that always plays when he's approaching his prey, is actually someone saying ki ki ki, ma ma ma, which is short term for kill kill kill, mom, mom, mom. Basically, it's supposed to represent that his mother is indeed the one beckoning him to kill, kill for her, because she wanted revenge. Jason will stop at nothing to kill for his mother, he won't even stop for a demon king of dreams! I think that is a good way to sum up the kind of killer Jason is, and also how much his name has spread in popularity over the years. Sure, he's not the titan he used to be, but there is still an innate respect for his brand and his name will always be part of horror history. Giving rise to the modern form of the slasher is no small feat. It's no secret that basically any slasher that comes out in the modern age uses the same character tropes and plot-lines that films like Friday The 13th used. All the stereotyping of this era is still in cinema's today! I'd also like to point out that Friday The 13th is another New Line Cinema's production, indeed, Jason shares the same company as his buddy Freddy.

(Truly the man of your dreams.)

Freddy Krueger, a name that is synonymous with horror just as much as Jason. New Line Cinema's, a struggling company trying to get off the ground, took a chance on this one and boy did it pay off for them. They're called the house that Freddy built for a reason, they were facing bankruptcy and Freddy saved them from going under completely on his own. The popularity of Nightmare on Elm Street was truly something to behold in the 80's, it made so much money for New Line Cinema's, and launched them into the successful film studio that they are today. They also took a relatively unknown director at the time, Wes Craven, and launched him into a successful film career. I personally think Wes Craven was one of the greatest horror directors of all time, and I miss him every day. We will always be able to remember him for his creations, like Freddy, who has existed almost as long as Jason, who beat him to the cinema screens by 4 years. Nightmare On Elm Street also launched Johnny Depp's career, something I feel like a lot of people actually don't know. He was an unknown name before this film, but it got him enough credibility as an actor to get hired again, and then again, so on and so forth.  Freddy is described to be a demon, a soul that made a pact with the devil to come back essentially in this case. He used to be a man who is implied to have molested the town's children, though it is never explicitly shown in too much detail in any entry. aside from the critically panned and disliked 2010 remake. If you compare the monetary gain of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise to the gains of Friday the 13th, there's an interesting little parallel that begins around the 3rd part of each series. That's when Freddy actually began earning more money than Friday the 13th did, given they didn't release on the same years, but it is interesting to point out that Freddy had more staying power at the box office than Jason did. So who then is really the more respected of the two? Well, box office wise of course it's Freddy, but the box office isn't everything to horror fans, in fact in my experience it seems that's the least important thing given the stigma carried by horror. It's not a widely loved genre, but people know the icons, and iconography is a very important part of Hollywood's studio production system. Freddy, Jason, two names we all know and love. As I mentioned above, Jason did go to Hell at one point, and it was then that the idea for the film Freddy vs. Jason was born. 

(Sit tight folks, we'll see you again in 10 years.)

See that image right there? That's the image that started it all, believe it or not. This was a little secret ending on Jason Goes to Hell which, by the way, came out in 1993; one of those after credits scenes everyone stays in the theater for after Marvel movies basically. That's right, Marvel isn't the first company to do something like this to plug another product! As you can see in the image, Freddy's glove is coming up out of the ground to cover up Jason's mask, something that of course meant a crossover was coming. This shocking image was something no horror fan could have expected, and of course it generated some buzz. A little bit at least, but Friday the 13th by that point was a dying series. The film made very little box office money, and basically killed the Friday the 13th series until they tried to revitalize it with Jason X, which also bombed. I mean, if they thought Jason going to space was really gonna put people in the seats if him going to Hell didn't, obviously. Really, at this time, both franchises were facing a sort of end point. Nightmare on Elm Street had released Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare in 1991, and Jason Goes to Hell killed the series that was there. Wes Craven however came back and released his vision of a new Nightmare on Elm Street film in 1994, which in itself is a good film, but exists outside of the original series canon as a sort of one off thing. Then, like I stated, New Line released Jason X in 2002, which did awful and added nothing to Jason's mythology. You may be asking yourself, wait just a damn minute, Jason Goes to Hell was released in 1993, setting up this major fight between Freddy and Jason, well, guess what, it didn't come very fast. Before that film came out, both franchises had already released another film after Jason Goes to Hell, and by the time Jason X came out, people had already completely forgotten Jason Goes to Hell. People already forgot about that clever little build up they did at the end of a Friday The 13th film that itself went to Hell. The only thing they ever released building up to the film was some cheesy little parody trailer that's set up like a WWE/WWF teaser in 1997, a full 6 years before the film in question was released, (Which can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5wus2evKG4#action=share). So, what took so long? Why you ask, did it take 10 whole years between Jason Goes to Hell and the final product of Freddy vs. Jason. Well, I can tell you! 

(This man had an unfortunate job.)

See that guy there? He's the director of Freddy Vs. Jason. Well, he's the one they picked to do the final product that is. See, the problem wasn't that they couldn't make the movie, or budgetary reasons, or even really a matter of not wanting to. It's the fact they couldn't decide on who they wanted to make the film, write the film, and all that business. The director they finally landed on, Ronny Yu, didn't have a very big film list. However, he's most known for directing Bride of Chucky, another campy slasher film, so it seemed liked a good fit to have him direct a Freddy vs Jason camp fest. And boy oh boy, what a camp fest it turned into. But that wasn't until it went through about 10 different script treatments, a whole slew of directors leading up to their final choice there, and a cavalcade of producers who were likely weary of the films success chances. It was a long and arduous ordeal, one that lasted 10 years between the release of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, and the finished product Freddy Vs. Jason. It's truly a tale of Hollywood and their way of overthinking things really. All they had to do was make a film about Freddy and Jason fighting each other to have a success on their hands, but they bickered and in-fought about plot details and everything and it went through so many scripts that it's hard to keep track of them. The final product itself is some sort of odd amalgamation of all the scripts that were ever written for the film, leading to what many see as a very disjointed film. What can I say about the final product that is Freddy vs. Jason? It took them 10 years to come out with a film that is really just a cheesy slasher flick with not much staying power. It's a fun film to look back on, and go, how did this take so long to get made? How did a movie this awful in nature, take 10 whole years to get made? Well, I think I just explained to you how, too many writers in a writing room, and too many scripts in the pot. The film even ends in a winking cliffhanger from Freddy, suggesting that at one point (though not likely now) New Line wanted to possibly do a sequel. That or it's just a cheeky final scene from Freddy that holds no bounds on the future of either franchise. Either way, everything about the film is pretty messy in nature. They took two icons and pasted them together haphazardly, trying to meld two polar opposites in the genre. A hulking masked killer who never speaks, and the king of one liners and puns, Freddy Krueger. I've always wondered what exactly drove them to put such complete opposite people in the same film. In my mind Michael vs Jason, or Freddy vs. maybe Chucky would have worked. You've got to keep the icons that are alike together, but I understand that New Line Cinema owns both franchises and financially it made sense for them to approach it this way since rights are confusing and expensive in Hollywood. Nonetheless, that is the history of Freddy Vs. Jason, and I would like to thank you for coming along for this retrospective on the film. Whether you're a fan of it or not, I think we can all agree on one thing: They probably should have struck the iron on this one when it was more hot, and both franchises hadn't been a sunken ship. 

Will they ever make a Freddy vs. Jason sequel? Probably not. Just recently Robert Englund confirmed he'll never play Freddy again since he's too old, and Jason has disappeared from cinema goers minds and hearts due to the atrocious 2009 remake of Friday the 13th. Freddy Vs. Jason is just an odd little piece of pop culture history, one that took ten years and way too many people to make, but it's fun to look to the hypothetical future and wonder what could have been. Both of these franchises have had an unfortunate demise in their respective remakes. Nightmare On Elm Street (2010) failed because of the middling story, and the fact that no one can really take on the mantle of Freddy after Robert Englund's solidifying of the role.  Jason's remake failed because in the modern era a film that is simply about killing people in a camp doesn't put people in the seats like it used to. The horror medium has changed, and evolved, and in some cases devolved over the years. That, in itself, tells you all you needed to know about Freddy vs. Jason's success rating. Sure it made some money, but it didn't make the kind of money they made in the 80's. That it is simply due to the fact that slashers are a dime a dozen thing these days. No one takes them seriously, they are funny, campy, and over the top. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoyed this look back on Freddy vs. Jason, the movie that began to take shape in 1993 but didn't come to us until 2003. Thank you for reading!