The producer and director, Sean S. Cunningham, made an independent American slasher film, Friday The 13th, to make viewers jump off their seats. The 95-minute-long film was released in the US on 09 May 1980. Made with $550,000, the film grossed $58.9 million at the box office.
The filmmakers dared to release the independent film internationally, though it did not have well-known actors except Betsy Palmer, a renowned film and television actress. However, the original Friday The 13th (1980) became the highest-grossing film in the franchise.
The film revolves around a group of teenage camp counselors who try to re-open an isolated summer camp with a terrible history. There, they get killed one by one by an unknown killer. Warner Bros. distributed the film internationally, whereas Paramount Pictures focused on domestic distribution.
Controversy Over The Script
Friday The 13th (1980) became successful and led to ten direct films under the franchise. Victor Miller, the writer of the original film, decided to terminate its copyright to get his royalty apart from the payment he got after the film’s release.
Miller claimed that he wrote the original script as an independent contractor. On the other hand, the producer, Sean S. Cunningham, and his team refused to give Miller royalty, saying that he worked under a contract with them and the Writers’ Guild of America.
They took the issue to the court, and the case continued till 2021, thanks to the 2020 pandemic. Finally, the court decided in Miller’s favor, allowing him to make a prequel, sequel, or remake for motion pictures but not use copyrighted materials.
Copyrighted materials include the title, ‘Friday The 13th,’ grown-up Jason, and hockey mask. Moreover, Miller cannot distribute his new work outside the US because the copyright termination is applied only within the nation. So, the film’s foreign rights are still with Sean S. Cunningham.
Grown-up Jason and the Hockey Mask are copyrighted materials because Jason was a child in the first movie released in 1980. A grown-up Jason started wearing the mask on Friday the 13th, Part III: 3D, which Miller does not have copyright over.
Miller’s lawyer, Marc Toberoff, showed concern over filming a little Jason with no mask, which will collapse at the box office. Finally, they planned to create a television series with the same concept.
Friday The 13th (2009) is the recent film released under the franchise. After going through a long legal dispute, Sean S. Cunningham decided to work on a new project. According to Bloody Disgusting, he hired Jeff Locker to write the upcoming film, though the sword of legal issues still hangs on their head.
Cunningham and Locker teamed up with the director, Jeremy Weiss, to work on upcoming sequels such as Friday The 13th, House (1985), and The Night Driver (1975). However, they do not know if Miller will return to block the film or ask for his share.
Meanwhile, viewers might lose the original concept of the Friday The 13th franchise if Cunningham and Miller release their separate versions of the film at the same time.
The Snake-Killing Scene
Friday, the 13th snake killing scene became viral on TikTok after forty years of release, and fans wanted to know whether the filmmakers killed a real snake or used some special effects.
According to the snake-killing scene, Alice calls her friends after finding a snake in her cabin. After crawling under the beds, the snake comes out, and Bill uses a machete to kill it.
The filmmakers did not hesitate to show the snake yearning for life before dying. So, they killed a real snake and tried to hide it due to embarrassment.
It was a non-venomous bull snake that could kill anyone only through strangulation. Moreover, Hollywood did not have animal protection laws for filmmaking in 1980, when the film was released.
The snake handler cried on the set because he did not know they wanted to kill the snake. Jeannine Taylor confirmed the use of a real snake and its death in a documentary, Crystal Lake Memories, released in 2012.
Later, Tom Savini confessed that he was not on the set when the scene was filmed. Animal laws became strict with time, and TikTok users were more concerned over the snake’s death than the fake deaths of other characters because the snake was real. Some internet users who owned snakes expressed their anger over someone hurting their pets.
