Jason Voorhees is finally coming to Dead by Daylight. After ten years of waiting, the time has arrived. On June 16, the horror icon is finally entering the Fog. Jason Voorhees is just as recognizable as Freddy Krueger or Michael Myers, so the question is why hasn’t he been in the game before now? The short answer? He legally couldn’t.
The Lawsuit That Froze a Franchise
No single person or company owns the complete rights to Friday the 13th. The franchise is split across three separate parties, each holding a different piece, and for years none of them could agree on how to use what they had. A screenwriter, a director, a production company, a streaming giant, and two of the biggest studios in Hollywood all own a piece of the property and none of them were able to come to an agreement on how to use it. That’s the reason why the Friday the 13th game had to be shut down. It’s why there hasn’t been a movie since 2009.
Victor Miller and the Original Screenplay
Victor Miller wrote the screenplay for the original 1980 film. He created Camp Crystal Lake, Mrs. Voorhees as the killer, and the child Jason who surfaces at the end. He was hired by director and producer Sean Cunningham through a company called Manny Company, and for nearly four decades he had no claim to any of it.
That changed because of a provision in U.S. copyright law called termination rights. Congress built this into the Copyright Act specifically to protect writers and artists who signed away valuable work early in their careers for very little money. After 35 years, an author can serve notice and reclaim their copyright, provided they were not an employee at the time of creation. The key word there is employee. If the work was created as “work for hire,” the termination right does not apply.
Cunningham’s side argued Miller was an employee. Miller argued he was an independent contractor. In 2018 a district court sided with Miller, and in 2021 the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision. Miller was an independent contractor, the screenplay was not work for hire, and he had the legal right to reclaim the U.S. copyright to the original film.
What that actually gives him is narrower than it sounds. Miller owns the U.S. copyright to the first film only, which means he controls the original story, the original characters as they appeared in that film, and the Camp Crystal Lake setting. He does not own adult Jason Voorhees. He does not own the hockey mask. He does not own anything introduced in Part 2 or beyond. And his rights only apply in the United States. Internationally, the picture is different.
Horror Inc. and Everything Jason Actually Is
Horror Inc., now run by Robert Barsamian, is the successor to Cunningham’s original production entity. After losing the lawsuit over the first film’s screenplay, Horror Inc. still controls the rest of the franchise, which is most of what people think of when they think of Friday the 13th and Jason Voorhees.
Adult Jason, the hockey mask, Tommy Jarvis, every kill from Part 2 through Jason X, and all the visual iconography built up across a dozen sequels, that all belongs to Horror Inc. They also control the rights to the original film outside the United States, which means even within the first movie, the international picture is split from the domestic one.
Sean Cunningham himself is a complicated figure in all of this. He is the director and producer who built the franchise, the man who hired Miller, and the losing party in the lawsuit. He has described his current role as more of a cheerleader than an active rights holder, though he has said he expects to serve as an executive producer if a new film gets made. The practical control of Horror Inc. rests with Barsamian at this point, not Cunningham.
Warner Bros. Owns the Name Itself
Here is where it gets genuinely absurd. Even if Miller and Horror Inc. sorted out every disagreement between themselves tomorrow, neither of them could put “Friday the 13th” on a new film or piece of merchandise without going through Warner Bros. New Line Cinema, which is a Warner Bros. subsidiary, holds the trademark to the Friday the 13th title for films and merchandise.
Paramount Pictures adds another layer by retaining distribution rights to the first eight films through Jason Takes Manhattan. So you have the screenplay rights, the character rights, the title trademark, and the distribution rights all sitting with different parties. Every attempt to make something new required getting all of these people in a room and agreeing, and for over a decade that was simply not happening.
Jason Universe and Why They Stopped Using the Name
The joint venture called Jason Universe is the current attempt to move past all of this. Miller and Barsamian’s Horror Inc. came together under that label to develop new content, combining their respective pieces of the IP into something they could actually work with. Cunningham has confirmed publicly that his issues with Miller are resolved and that he considers himself part of the collaboration.
The reason everything is now branded “Jason Universe” instead of “Friday the 13th” is not a creative choice. It is a legal one. Warner Bros. still owns the Friday the 13th trademark, so the Jason Universe label sidesteps that entirely by centering the brand on the character rather than the film title. It is the kind of workaround that makes complete sense once you know the situation and sounds completely baffling if you do not.
There is also some cautious optimism on the studio side. Cunningham has noted publicly that the potential merger of Warner Bros. and Paramount could actually help, because it would bring the title trademark and the early film distribution rights under one roof, removing at least one layer of the negotiation problem.
Crystal Lake, Sweet Revenge, and What Comes Next
In 2025 Horror, Inc teamed up with Angry Orchard to put out a 20 minute ad featuring the brand starring Jason Voorhees. It was our first look at Jason in this new universe. It also introduced an interesting twist with Crystal Lake when it created another monster. Where this goes and how it ties into future content is unknown, especially considering the next content is a prequel.
Crystal Lake, a TV series in development at A24 for Peacock. The show debuts in October 2026 and will feature Pamela Voorhees before the first film. Linda Cardellini stars as Pamela and Callum Vinson as a young Jason Voorhees. There are rumors of an adult Jason being incorporated in the show somehow.
I have been waiting for new Jason movie for years. A Friday the 13th movie is probably the first horror movie I ever saw. With everything seemingly being sorted out, we should have a new one soon and hopefully we won’t have to wait another 16 years between movies.
