#Friday the 13th Producer Sues Warner Bros. and Paramount for Lost Profits

It’s going to be a while yet before Jason Voorhees is out of the courtroom. The legal battle for the rights to Friday the 13th has been stretched out for years at this point with no indication when a final ruling will be made. If that wasn’t enough, series producer Sean Cunningham has just filed another lawsuit in relation to the horror franchise, suing Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures with allegations that both companies had “systematically misaccounted” for lost profits.

“This lawsuit presents the latest chapter of Defendants ‘Hollywood accounting,'” argues Sean Cunningham’s legal team, led by Neville Johnson.
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In the complaint, Cunningham says that the Jason Voorhees franchise has grossed more than $129 million. He alleges that audits have discovered “improper deductions of fees and bonuses, undervalued licenses, an underreporting of merchandizing revenue and pay TV income,” and more. Cunningham also says that Warner Bros. and Paramount worked to prevent him from understanding the flow of the money, alleging that the companies have “withheld documents would reveal that the Pictures’s distribution was structured to inequitably advance the interest of Defendants and favored third parties.”

This marks the second legal battle to ensnarl the Friday the 13th franchise in recent years. Another lawsuit between Cunningham and Victor Miller, who wrote the original movie’s screenplay, is still ongoing. In 2018, Miller won the rights against Cunningham, but the courtroom drama wasn’t over yet. Cunningham appealed the decision, and there’s still no word yet on when a final ruling will be made. Friday the 13th fans are certainly hoping that will come soon so another movie can finally be produced.

Cunningham produced and directed the original Friday the 13th using a screenplay penned by Miller. Released in 1980, the classic slasher movie follows an unseen killer butchering a group of teenagers at Camp Crystal Lake. In the end, the killer is revealed to be Pamela Voorhees (Betsy Palmer), a vengeful mother who’s gone violently crazy after her son Jason drowned at the camp several years before. The movie was a hit with horror fans, instantly spawning a popular new franchise.

Jason would become the killer of the series starting in Friday the 13th: Part II, and other than the time he sat out for copycat killer Roy Burns in Part V, he’s been the one in the driver seat ever since. Over the course of the franchise, he’s visited Manhattan, outer space, Hell, and Elm Street. He was rebooted in 2009 with the 12th installment of the series, Marcus Nispel’s Friday the 13th. We have now gone 12 years without a new Friday the 13th movie, by far the longest stretch between films.

The good news is that the legal drama has to end eventually, and when it does, fans will obviously be ready for a new Friday the 13th. Given the continued fan interest in the series, there’s no doubt that Jason will be back at some point. It’s just a matter of time, however long that might be. This news comes to us from The Hollywood Reporter.

Topics: Friday the 13th