Fifteen years ago today, two horror titans from two very popular horror franchise finally came face to face in a brawl that had been years in the making. In one corner you had Freddy Krueger, the resident boogeyman of Elm Street and your most awful nightmares. In the other corner, you had Jason Voorhees, the zombie slasher of Camp Crystal Lake who proved that it’s never safe to get lost in the woods. The union of these franchises seemed very unlikely on paper but the powers that be deemed it necessary that these two should face off. They inhabit two different worlds and despite a lot of false starts, years of development hell and multiple screenwriters, the finished product is much better than it has any right to be. On August 15, 2003, horror fans got their battle royale and it proved to be worth the wait.
The road to Freddy Vs. Jason is a pretty sorted one that began long before we entered Y2K. The thought of the two franchise heavyweights battling it out began due to fans’ desire for a crossover film depicting a fight between the two icons. Because of this, New Line (who held the rights to the Freddy character & A Nightmare on Elm Street and Paramount (holder of the Jason rights and Friday The 13th) tried to make a Freddy vs. Jason movie in 1987 but the two studios couldn’t come to an agreement on a story. Negotiations between the two studios also never finalized which resulted in Paramount moving forward with Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood instead.
After the follow up to Part VII, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, failed to perform successfully at the box office, Sean Cunningham, director of the original Friday the 13th, decided that he wanted to reacquire the rights to Friday and start working with New Line Cinema on Freddy vs. Jason, as New Line owned A Nightmare on Elm Street. After Jason Takes Manhattan was released in 1989, Paramount wanted to wash their hands of the franchise and the rights reverted to Phil Scuderi, Steve Minasian, and Bob Barsamian, who sold them to New Line. It looked like an all-clear for Sean Cunningham to begin working on Freddy Vs. Jason but a mastermind from the Nightmare franchise had an idea for a brand new film.
Wes Craven returned to New Line to work on Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, which effectively put any plans for Freddy Vs. Jason on hold. Sean Cunningham, deciding to not rest on his laurels, decided it would be good to keep Jason in the public consciousness until he could turn Freddy Vs. Jason into a reality so he developed Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, the ninth installment of the Friday the 13th franchise. While not a huge box office hit, the film turned a healthy enough profit in relation to its budget but, most importantly, the film’s primary purpose was to hint at the arrival of Freddy Vs. Jason. The ending stinger was meant to tease the upcoming crossover between the two franchises but Cunningham would be forced to wait once again to make this union happen.
Cunningham’s “frustration” with the delayed development of the Freddy vs. Jason project forced him to create another sequel titled Jason X in an effort to keep the series in the minds of audiences. Based on Jason Takes Manhattan‘s concept of taking Jason away from Crystal Lake, the tenth film would put the character in space. The film initially had solid studio backing but the film eventually suffered from the loss of its biggest supporter, President of Production Michael De Luca, when he was fired from his position at New Line. The lack of support forced the finished film to sit for two years before finally being released on April 26, 2002, and the end result was not pretty. The film went on to become the lowest grossing film in the series at the domestic box office which wasn’t a glowing distinction since it carried the largest budget of the franchise as well.
A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th had seemingly worn out their welcome by this point. Wes Craven’s New Nightmare was well-received by critics and is a fan favorite but it underperformed at the box office and Jason X was a financial and critical bomb. At this point, it seemed the only way to breathe life back into both franchises was finally getting Freddy Vs. Jason off the ground but this would be no easy task.
New Line Cinema would go on to spend roughly $6 million on several unused scripts from over a dozen screenwriters. Tons of ideas were tossed around. From plots that ranged from the implausible (Freddy was once planned to be a camp counselor at Camp Crystal Lake who molested Jason) to the ridiculous (Jason on trial for his crimes), New Line Cinema just couldn’t manage to nail down a premise as to why these two icons of horror would just so happen to be in the same film together. It wasn’t until longtime Nightmare and Friday fans Mark Swift and Damian Shannon produced a treatment that everyone involved, including New Line Cinema Head of Production Michael DeLuca (who also wrote the screenplay for Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare), agreed would work that it looked like Freddy Vs. Jason might actually happen.
DeLuca was Freddy Vs. Jason’s biggest supporter but unfortunately for Swift and Shannon, DeLuca was eventually fired from New Line Cinema before they got deep into pre-production on Freddy Vs. Jason. All of a sudden the film’s biggest supporter was gone, and Swift and Shannon were left to their own devices to get it made. The writing duo had to re-convince New Line that even developing Freddy Vs. Jason was a good idea, and it took some convincing. They had to re-pitch a whole new set of executives, write summary documents about how and why Freddy and Jason were in the same movie and what they were fighting about. They also did a beat sheet with a list of rules about things Freddy and Jason should and shouldn’t do. This was all done before they even wrote the script.
New Line had also lost faith in a franchise that had once dubbed the studio, “The House That Freddy Built”. At the behest of Swift and Shannon, New Line began reaching out to audiences to see if they would even be willing to see Freddy Vs. Jason. The studio hired a consultant to test the concept with the public and to see if there was any interest in the movie. After their research, they found that there was indeed some interest, but recommended that it be rated PG-13. This was a huge no-no for Swift and Shannon, who knew hardcore horror fans would balk at a PG-13 rated film from either franchise. When they heard this they wrote an impassioned email to the head of marketing at the studio, begging him to not only to back the movie but to keep an R rating and as you can see from the final result, they won that battle and blood and gore definitely flowed.
All the hard work eventually paid off and New Line Cinema founder Robert Shaye and production executive Stokely Chafkin gave them the green light. Swift and Shannon’s original script was around 120 pages, which would have resulted in a two-hour film. 90 pages put it in at 90 minutes and this is usually the sweet spot for horror but the writers felt the audience wanted to see as much as they could of this long and development battle of the horror icons. This was something the studio disagreed with, however. Subplots and characters were cut and combined at the request of the studio and they brought in David S. Goyer to trim the script even more.
The team went through about three different drafts of the script before Goyer arrived on the scene. It’s told that Goyer did an excellent job of trimming every ounce of fat from the movie, but he also had to cover up what was cut. So in the end, you had characters explaining the plot to each other, rather than talking like real people. It made for a shorter movie, but one filled with some dialogue that is a bit on the nose. This is most evident in Lori’s (Monica Keena) now infamous line “Freddy died by fire, Jason by water. How can we use that?”
One of the biggest controversies surrounding the production of Freddy Vs. Jason was New Line’s decision to recast Kane Hodder (a fan-favorite Jason who played him in Friday the 13th 7-10) with newcomer Ken Kirzinger. New Line believed Freddy vs. Jason needed a fresh start, and chose a new actor for Jason. Many behind the scenes disagreed with the decision since Hodder had proven his worth in the role over the years and was a huge favorite with horror fans. Hodder did receive the script for Freddy vs. Jason and had a meeting with director Ronny Yu and New Line executives, but Matthew Barry and Yu felt the role should be recast to fit Yu’s image of Jason. According to Hodder, New Line didn’t provide him with a reason for the recasting, but Yu has explained he wanted a slower, more deliberate Jason, and less of the aggressive movements that Hodder had used in the previous films. Yu had a lot of freedom to make such decisions. This was a director who revived the Child’s Play franchise a few years before with the surprise hit, Bride of Chucky. Because of his success with that film, the studio trusted his instincts and let him basically direct the film he wanted to make.
Ken Kirzinger, who eventually got the role, was a Canadian stuntman who worked on Jason Takes Manhattan. Beyond his less aggressive movements as Jason, Yu thought that his size in comparison to Robert Englund, who plays Freddy Krueger, was significant. Kirzinger was taller than Englund at 6’5 (Hodder is 6’3). Englund stood at 5’9. Although he was hired by the crew, New Line did not officially cast Kirzinger until first seeing him on film. Kirzinger’s first scene was Jason walking down Elm Street. New Line wanted a specific movement in Jason’s walk and Kirzinger met their expectations and signed a contract with the studio.
Despite all of the issues surrounding Freddy Vs, Jason, the film proved to be a massive success, especially by horror standards. The film opened on August 15, 2003, with a record-breaking $36.4 million dollars and would go on to gross $82.6 million domestically and $114.9 million worldwide, all on a $30 million budget. After doing some research, Freddy Vs. Jason was a movie that promoted itself through fan hype. The writers have stated they didn’t get many billboards advertising the film and they went through less conventional means to market the movie. There was a Las Vegas weigh in which actually proved to be a truly smart move because it sold the brawl even more and the internet played a huge role in the initial success of the film. These tactics led to it being the biggest horror movie opening at the time, which makes sense given that both of these characters are huge with horror fans.
Success doesn’t mean there wasn’t backlash. The film got its fair share of criticism as well, especially from those who wanted more brawling and less of the young cast who drove the plot. People didn’t go to the film to see Monica Keena as Lori or Kelly Rowland of Destiny’s Child as Kia, they wanted to see Freddy and Jason fight for 90 minutes. I maintain that this isn’t a realistic prospect because the film needs the plot to move things forward, even if it is absurd. A movie with 90 minutes worth of fighting is just not feasible but I do agree that the cast of victims does drive the plot a bit too much in comparison to Freddy and Jason. Hell, with Lori’s final chop of Freddy’s head, we could argue that she wins the battle in Freddy Vs. Jason.
There was also fan backlash over Kia (Kelly Rowland) calling Freddy Krueger a faggot. I remember this being very off-putting when I saw the film back in 2003 and it’s still a line that still makes the skin crawl in all the wrong ways. Swift and Shannon have denied taking any part in the film’s use of the word and they still maintain that stance today. They say that they didn’t write the line and were genuinely surprised when they heard it in the movie. They complained about the line after the first screening of the film but it was still left in the movie, much to their dismay. Whether it was an improv from Rowland or a studio decision on set remains a mystery even 15 years later.
Another common complaint is that the film doesn’t marry the two franchises together seamlessly, but instead feels like a Friday the 13th film that Freddy just happens to be in (he only gets one kill in the entire movie). That being said, it can be argued that Freddy is the one pulling the strings of the plot. He’s the one in control, manipulating events, and dominates the story. Jason is more of a ‘tool’ in that sense. I personally think that it makes sense that Jason gets more kills because his franchise has been more about body count than the story. The fact that Freddy is the one essentially controlling the narrative, despite the lack of a lot of kills, makes sense because the Nightmare films have always been more about the story, than seeing how many people get killed.
The big question on everyone’s mind when they were going to see Freddy Vs. Jason was: “Who would win?” The ending that was used, which New Line Cinema founder Robert Shaye came up with, featured Jason walking out of the lake holding Freddy’s severed head as Freddy winked at the camera before the credits rolled. Some believe a clear winner was never declared. To that, Swift and Shannon have disagreed and they don’t think the ending plays like a stalemate or a copout. They believe the intention was always for the ending to be a Rorschach test for fans: Freddy fans would think Freddy won, and Jason fans would think Jason won. If you’re asking me, since Freddy gets the final wink, I’m declaring him the winner.
But let’s be real here. Despite the talk of some of the backlash and criticism, I can honestly say that Freddy Vs. Jason mostly lives up to its promise, even 15 years later. The last 20 minutes is essentially a horror fan’s dream as we see these two characters battling it out in the best way. It’s gory, it’s chaotic, it’s over the top and it’s likely just like you envisioned it. You don’t go into a film called Freddy Vs. Jason and expect The Godfather. You go in with your brain checked at the door as you watch two horror juggernauts you’ve grown up with a fight to the death. It may not be perfect, but it’s certainly fun.
