‘Friday the 13th’ Reboot Writers Spill Their Guts on the Unmade Sequel: “We Had a Really Awesome Zipline Kill”
There was a time when Damian Shannon and Mark Swift–the scribes behind the 2009 Friday the 13th reboot–were set to return to the campfire with Jason Voorhees. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. The film was cancelled, and ole’ maggot head was put back in the grave. A result of the legal dispute over the rights and in spite of the reboot becoming the highest-grossing movie in the franchise. But that isn’t stopping the writing duo from spilling details on what almost was.
Shannon and Swift recently sat down with ComicBook.com to discuss the unmade Friday film. They confirmed that the title would’ve been Camp Blood: The Death of Jason Voorhees, and would have finally featured a winter setting…if only briefly.
“Winter has never been done in the Friday the 13th franchise, and we’ve always dreamed about it,” revealed Swift. “We want to see visible breath coming through the holes in the hockey mask. We want to see red blood drips in pristine white snow. We want Jason to jab a long sharp icicle through a camp counselor’s eye. In the opening scene, Crystal Lake is frozen solid. Two naughty teens go out onto the frozen ice to play hockey. The puck slides… and stops right on top of what appears to be a dead girl under the ice. It’s Whitney (Amanda Righetti) from our last chapter. Then, on the shoreline, they see an imposing figure who looks like he wants to join them. Only he isn’t holding a hockey stick. It’s a machete.”
This confirms that Whitney, the final girl of the 2009 reboot, sadly did not make it out of that last encounter with Jason.
The duo also revealed that the film would have seen Camp Crystal Lake open for business again.
Teased Shannon, “We had a really awesome zipline kill that I always loved.”
I’ve been a big advocate for a Friday the 13th set in a winter landscape for as long as I can remember. Shannon and Swift clarified that the snow would only be featured in the opening of Camp Blood, but still. How cool would it have been to watch Jason carry around an icy machete, leaving trails of blood in the snow wherever he goes? Guess we’ll just have to put that idea back on ice, for now.
Shannon and Swift’s Friday film may never have gotten the go ahead, but that hasn’t stopped the franchise. Our special boy will return in A24’s Crystal Lake prequel series, set to open camp once again later this year on Peacock.
Hope you all enjoy Friday the 13th this weekend…the first of three (!!!) in 2026!
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