Is the Friday the 13th Chapter more closer? Let's go in order.
Let's start from the beginning, in order to clarify once and for all about what happened to the Friday The 13th franchise and why there is a lawsuit in pending.
Do you remember Shelly? He was a character in Friday The 13th Part III.
The name of the actor who played that character is Larry Zerner, and he is now a lawyer.
On June 13, 2018 with a series of tweets he accurately explains the lawsuit around Friday The 13th and why all the products with that brand had to stop production, including the DLCs of the Illfonic game (Friday The 13th: The Game), below his words:
"I’ve seen a lot of people dragging Victor (Miller n.d.r) online as if this is his fault. It’s not. The Copyright Act includes a provision that states that an author can terminate any transfer he or she has made after 35 years. Congress added this provision to allow creators (writers, songwriters, etc.) who sold their rights cheap to have a second chance. In the case of Victor Miller, he was originally paid about $9,500 for the original Friday the 13th script, which turned into 12 movies, a very successful video game and lots of Jason Voorhees merchandise. This franchise Victor helped create made hundreds of millions of $$$, but Victor was not entitled to any of that money. Victor did what the Copyright Act allows him to do, he sent a notice of termination to Sean (Cunningham n.d.r), giving Sean two years notice of the termination (which would occur in June 2018). The way it usually works in these cases is that the producer and the terminating writer will then have the two year period to work out a deal on how the money will be split on future projects (the termination does not affect movies already completed). But Sean and Victor would need to make a deal because the termination only affects the Friday the 13th U.S. rights. Because of the quirks of copyright law, even after termination, Sean would still own the rights outside the U.S. But instead of making a deal, Sean sued Victor, claiming that the agreement that Victor signed in 1979 is not terminable. And the fact is that this is a very new area of law, so there is not a lot of guidance for judges on who is right. Both sides have very capable lawyers who are arguing the case. One of the problems is that although both sides argued motions for summary judgment last October, the judge in the case still hasn’t ruled. This has really slowed things down. I’m sure that everyone involved believed that there would be a trial long before the termination occurred. I know it’s frustrating for the fans who want new movies and more content. But to blame it all on Victor is unfair.”
Since then, there have been few updates about this lawsuit, but, it seems this is the right year to have a definitive answer on how everything will end.
Last year, in fact, there was talk of a closure of this cause by summer 2020, and just in late April 2020, Larry Zerner through his Twitter account let us know that there should be important updates by the end of May this year:
And in the last week important news have emerged regarding new products branded Friday The 13th coming out this summer.
The first one I want to tell you about is a board game produced by The Op and which will be released this summer, completely under license:
Always thanks to Larry Zerner we come to know of two other very interesting details: neither the name "Jason Voorhees" nor the name "Camp Crystal Lake" are protected by copyright, and moreover, to avoid going into copyright problems with the first film (that of Victor Miller) it is necessary simply not to use elements of the script of that film and not to use the aesthetics of that Jason. That's why that board game has no problem getting out, simply because it doesn't use anything from the script of the first Friday The 13th film, so of the Victor Miller film.
The second one concerns an advent calendar produced by Funko and in which 13 horror icons will be present and the Friday The 13th brand is also included, this too will be released in the summer and already pre-orderable:
Note that the names of the two companies that own the rights of the 13 brands that are part of this calendar are written below the brand names. Most of them are New Line Productions brands and also the Friday The 13th brand belongs to that company. Probably, as well as the board game, also here we will have a jason that will be aesthetically different from that of the first film, in order not to run into copyright problems.
Both products have one thing in common: both are released in the summer, maybe because by the summer the lawsuit will be effectively concluded and therefore these products can be sold. If so, it will mean that after the summer, also Behaviour Interactive will be able to make arrangements to bring Jason Voorhees to Dead by Daylight. Or maybe could do it already now, releasing a chapter that is far from the script of the first film of the franchise.
Finally, thanks to SpookyBoy on our discord server, I discovered another interesting thing: the reveal of the next chapter of Dead by Daylight will take place on May 26th, right? Guess what game was released on May 26th of three years ago?
Technically the only Jason that was in the first movie was the revenant young Jason and 2nd Jason had the bag. He didn’t have the iconic mask until the 3rd film. I know Gun Media/Illfonic says that no matter the outcome of the lawsuit they won’t go back to adding stuff to the F13 game (which sucks) but maybe it can have a 2nd life through a different developer?