Every Way Freddy Vs Jason's Original Plan Changed - Screen Rant

2003’s slasher showdown Freddy vs. Jason spent years in development hell, and fans of both the Nightmare On Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises may be dismayed to discover that viewers missed out on a lot of promising plans in that time. When Freddy vs. Jason was first announced, fans of both slasher series were thrilled. The later movie appearances of Jason Voorhees had slid further and further into self-parody and earned diminishing critical returns as a result, while the most recent Nightmare On Elm Street movie was reduced to pitting Freddy and the Dream Demons against his secret daughter in a desperate attempt to tie the franchise together. Both slashers needed a fresh start and a face-off between the two titans of the horror sub-genre seemed like the ideal setup for such a comeback.

When Freddy vs. Jason arrived in cinemas in 2003, the gory R-rated horror-comedy was broadly seen as a return to form for both franchises despite its flaws. With a 41% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie was by no means a critical triumph. However, it did represent a marked improvement on some of each franchise's most recent offerings. However, despite this relative success, Freddy vs. Jason sacrificed some wild, exciting, and promising ideas to make their way onto the big screen.

Related: How The Scream Movies Avoided Nightmare On Elm Street’s Sequel Disaster

Thanks to the complicated issue of securing the rights to both competing horror franchises, Freddy vs. Jason took a long time to make it to the screen. Much like how the earlier Nightmare on Elm Street sequel Dream Warriors changed a lot of its original ambitious plans during the production process, a lot of the original vision for Freddy vs. Jason was lost between script and screen. What made it to fans was a well-liked, fast-paced story with some standout set-pieces and an agreeably tongue-in-cheek tone. However, what fans could have been in for was a movie that tied together both franchise’s plots, an appearance from a third horror icon, and the return of numerous pivotal legacy characters.

Peter Jackson’s Freddy Vs. Jason

While he might be better known as a blockbuster director, in the early ‘90s, Peter Jackson was a rising star in the world of horror cinema thanks to his inventive, inexpensive early horror-comedies. Having already written a rejected draft for the sixth Nightmare On Elm Street movie Freddy’s Dead, Jackson was offered the opportunity to direct Freddy vs. Jason. However, this time around, it was the director’s chance to turn down the producers. Jackson decided against the project since he wasn’t a fan of the movie’s screenplay, while cult horror filmmaker Rob Zombie also opted not to direct Freddy vs. Jason thanks to his schedule being busy with House of 1000 Corpses.

Jackson rejected the opportunity in the late ‘90s and, by the time Freddy Vs Jason went into production in 2001, a famous fantasy franchise ensured that the helmer would never have been free to shoot the slasher movie regardless. As for the other emerging horror auteur who was offered the job of helming Freddy vs. Jason, Zombie ended up working on another iconic slasher franchise instead. The success of House of 1000 Corpses success led Zombie to reboot Halloween, the other famous slasher series with an inconsistent screen history.

Freddy Vs Jason Vs Pinhead

Since both characters started the story of Freddy vs. Jason in Hell, it only makes sense that Hellraiser’s iconic villain Pinhead was originally slated to put in an appearance in the movie. Doug Bradley’s character was often listed alongside the Springwood slasher and Camp Crystal Lake’s most famous son as an icon of ‘80s slasher cinema, although the Hellraiser movies did not technically fit the slasher mold until their later sequels. Despite this fact, there’s no doubt that a generation of fans who were scarred by all three villains in their childhood would have enjoyed the cameo but, unfortunately, the complications of securing rights to the Clive Barker-created character made this prospect a distant dream. Similarly, an early draft connected the movie to the Evil Dead franchise, an interesting idea that could easily have resulted in many Freddy vs. Jason plot holes when it fused the canon of all three franchises. This idea was revisited in a successful comic spinoff, where Ash Williams faced off against both villains and (just about) secured a hard-won victory.

Related: Why A Nightmare On Elm Street Reboot Can’t Copy Chucky’s TV Show

Returning Friday the 13th and Nightmare On Elm Street Characters

Frequently recast Friday the 13th franchise legend Tommy Jarvis was originally intended to appear in Freddy vs. Jason, as was Dream Warriors supporting star Dr. Neil Gordon. The return of these legacy characters could have definitively fused the canon of both franchises, but the finished movie instead opted to focus on new characters and avoid the complicated stories of either series. In fairness to the filmmakers, both Nightmare On Elm Street and Friday the 13th had fairly convoluted plots by the time Freddy vs. Jason came to be, so avoiding the earlier movies wholesale was the easiest way to avoid untangling these storylines. However, finally answering the mystery of what happened to Neil Gordon after the events of Dream Warriors would have been a satisfying plot hole for Freddy vs. Jason to fill in, and there was one major Friday the 13th star could have appeared without the movie needing to explain the entire franchise’s canon. Mrs. Voorhees herself Betsy Palmer was even offered a cameo but opted not to return as the salary being offered was not sufficient.

Freddy’s Connection To Jason

Several unlikely connections between Freddy and Jason were considered during the early phases of Freddy vs. Jason's development. Unlikely scenarios such as Freddy being Jason’s father and Freddy letting Jason drown were all discussed before the filmmakers decided that the personal connection between villains added nothing to the movie's story. Since Freddy vs. Jason's final girl Lori is the real victor of Freddy and Jason’s showdown, it makes sense that the director and screenwriters opted not to waste screen time on a complicated backstory that would inevitably retcon parts of both franchises. While dropping the cameos from Dr. Gordon and Mrs. Voorhees left the movie feeling unmoored in both franchises, adding a connection between Freddy and Jason would not necessarily have done anything to deepen their conflict or make it more compelling. As such, the filmmakers likely made the right call in vetoing this particular Freddy vs. Jason idea early on in production, leaving the Nightmare On Elm Street and Friday the 13th stories as separate and endlessly complicated as ever.

More: How Nightmare On Elm Street (Unintentionally) Ruined Slasher Movies