‘Friday the 13th’ Legal Battle Rages On as Sean Cunningham’s Appeal Has Been Reinstated

As always, let’s quickly recap where we are and how we got here…

After exorcising his legal rights, a judge ruled last year that writer Victor Miller is the sole owner of the original Friday the 13th screenplay (in the United States only, oddly enough), but the judge declined to make a ruling on who currently owns the character of “adult Jason Voorhees,” who of course didn’t actually appear within the franchise until the second film.

The rights are split, and the two sides haven’t come to any agreements – Victor Miller, the original film’s writer, and Sean Cunningham, the film’s director and the franchise’s owner. Long story short, new Friday the 13th/Jason movies will likely not be made until a deal is reached.

Subsequently, Friday the 13th director Sean Cunningham filed a notice of appeal, but more recently, the withdrawal of Cunningham and Horror Inc’s appeal was filed (for technical reasons). If the appeal was going to be reinstated, it had to be reinstated by April 12th, and we’ve just learned this week that Cunningham’s appeal was indeed reinstated last week.

What does that mean? For starters, we’re no closer to a deal being reached – we had heard, it’s worth noting, that a deal almost closed last month, but it fell apart over a deal point.

Entertainment lawyer/Friday the 13th Part 3 star Larry Zerner responded to this latest update:

“This isn’t the end of the world, but it is disappointing. It may just mean that they need additional time to get a deal done.”

We had *hoped* that the appeal would not be reinstated, and that Cunningham/Miller would instead reach some kind of agreement that would allow for the Friday the 13th franchise to return in such a way that would benefit both creators of the iconic property. Alas, it looks like the messy battle will drag on, which could mean no Jason for many more years to come.

As Zerner notes, “I [think] that Victor Miller would probably win the appeal, but I don’t want to wait another two years before they can start making a new Friday the 13th movie.”

At this time, it’s now been TEN YEARS since the last Friday the 13th movie.

Friday the 13th (watch it HERE) filed to claim the copyright to the film in 2016. Two years later, a judge ruled in favor of Miller and granted him the U.S. copyright to the first Friday the 13th. The film’s director and producer Sean S. Cunningham felt that Miller did not deserve the copyright, so he filed an appeal, saying that Miller had only written what Cunningham had hired him to write. Three years later, a judge has ruled in favor of Miller again. He just won the appeal.