The announcement of Peacock, A24 and Bryan Fuller‘s Friday the 13th-based series Crystal Lake was some of the most exciting news horror fans had heard in a while, especially poor starved Jason Voorhees-heads who had to watch the slashers of Halloween, Scream and Chucky all rack up more movies and shows.
The recent news that Hannibal showrunner Fuller had recently left the project left fans disappointed, wondering where it all went wrong. TheWrap today have dropped a bomb of information surrounding the inside outs of the project and how it sadly fell apart.
To refresh your memory, Crystal Lake was initially announced back in late 2022, and was described as an “expanded prequel” to Friday the 13th, one that would include both Jason Voorhees and his mother, Pamela.
According to TheWrap, said mother was apparently eyed to be played by none other than Oscar-winner Charlize Theron (Monster, Mad Max: Fury Road).
Behind the camera, directors like Vincenzo Natali (Cube) and Kimberly Peirce (Carrie) were earmarked to direct episodes, with Scream‘s Kevin Williamson set to write an episode-long chase scene set entirely on a frozen Crystal Lake. This particular episode had even been described as the show’s Red Wedding (a reference to the infamously brutal Game of Thrones episode.)
Natali even tweeted that he’d read the first two episodes and they were “Hannibal-level reinvention that was simultaneously beautiful, sad, poetic, funny and horrifying.”
Sounds amazing, right? So, what happened? Well, it seems like budget played a part here. TheWrap report that
“…each episode of “Crystal Lake, which was intended to have eight per season, was budgeted at around $9.6 million, but according to sources, A24 wanted to cut that in half.”
All in all, Crystal Lake would’ve cost A24 a whopping $85 million, which – for a show set entirely at a camp – seems a little excessive.
TheWrap‘s full report goes into further detail surrounding more chaos behind the scenes, including “inexperienced production executives” and “questionable decisions.” Yikes.
For now, the future of Crystal Lake remains very much up in the air – but we will bring you any updates as they come rolling in.
