Why Freddy vs. Jason Works When So Many Movie Crossovers Fail

Freddy vs. Jason works for a few reasons, and one of them is that it promised fans Freddy versus Jason and then delivered exactly that. The 2003 film overcame years of development hell, studio interference and waning box office interest in 1980s style slashers to become one of the most successful films of not one but two franchises.

To prepare for this fight, I went through 10 Friday the 13th films, seven Nightmare on Elm Street films, episodes of both Friday the 13th: The Series and Freddy's Nightmares, the documentaries His Name Was Jason and Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, and every single Freddy vs. Jason Blu-ray special feature. After all that, I can definitively explain why it works. To understand how it got there, we need to go all the way back to 1980.

Jason Voorhees went from Camp Crystal Lake to hell and then to space

Independently produced and directed by Sean S. Cunningham and written by Victor Miller, the first Friday the 13th was distributed in the US by Paramount Pictures on May 9, 1980. It had an estimated budget of between $500,000 and $650,000 and grossed over $59.8 million worldwide. Critics hated it, but audiences loved it. The killer was Pamela Voorhees, mother of Jason, a boy who drowned at Camp Crystal Lake in 1957 because the counselors were not paying attention. Final girl Alice beheads her with a machete, but in a sequence that may or may not be a dream, Alice is dragged under the water by a decaying little Jason.

In 1981's Part 2, adult Jason becomes an unstoppable killing machine, and final girl Ginny tricks him by pretending to be his mother. That will come back in Freddy vs. Jason. Part 3 in 1982 gave Jason his hockey mask, and 1984's The Final Chapter saw him wake in the morgue before Tommy Jarvis, played by Corey Feldman, tricks him by dressing like him as a child. In 1985's A New Beginning the killer turns out to be a copycat paramedic, and in 1986's Jason Lives, a lightning strike on a fence post revives Jason as an unkillable supernatural killer before Tommy chains a boulder around his neck.

Before 1988's The New Blood, Paramount approached New Line Cinema about a crossover with Nightmare on Elm Street. It did not happen then, but it gave the filmmakers the idea of pitting Jason against a teen with telekinetic abilities. Jason Takes Manhattan followed in 1989, and 1993's Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday was the first released by New Line, home of Freddy. At its end, Freddy Krueger's gloved hand pops up from the ground and grabs Jason's mask. A crossover seemed imminent, but it would take another 10 years. In the meantime came 2001's Jason X, with a cyborg Jason on a spaceship.

Freddy Krueger spent a decade tormenting Elm Street teens

Written and directed by Wes Craven and produced and distributed by New Line, the first A Nightmare on Elm Street was released on November 9, 1984, with an estimated budget of $1.1 million and a worldwide gross of $57.1 million. Critics and fans alike loved it. Child murderer Fred Krueger was let off on a technicality, so the parents of Elm Street in Springwood, Ohio, burned him alive. Years later he takes revenge on their kids in their dreams until final girl Nancy, played by Heather Langenkamp, refuses to participate in fear.

1985's Freddy's Revenge has been labeled the gayest horror movie ever made by a number of publications and has since become a favorite in the LGBTQ community. It's amazing. 1987's Dream Warriors, widely considered the favorite or one of the favorites, brought back Craven, Nancy and her father, played by John Saxon. Nancy, now a therapist, gives institutionalized teens the dream suppressing drug Hypnocil. Remember that plot point. The Dream Master and The Dream Child followed, and 1991's Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare was built as the absolute last entry, complete with a not super successful 3D third act.

Bob Shaye then went back to the Wes Craven well one more time for the fantastic meta Wes Craven's New Nightmare in 1994, in which Craven, Shaye, Robert Englund, Langenkamp and Saxon all play themselves. It was a precursor to Craven's Scream, and while it underperformed at the time, it has since become one of the franchise's most appreciated entries.

Freddy vs. Jason was stuck in development hell for a decade

Inspired by classic monster matchups like Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, both Paramount and New Line wanted a crossover early on, but each wanted the other to license them their rival's character so they could make whatever movie they wanted. Neither would. Honestly, if they had, I don't think the movie would be nearly as good as it ended up being. Luckily, Shaye and Cunningham were friends, and when Paramount lost the rights to Friday the 13th in 1993, Cunningham approached Shaye and said, "Let's do this."

Reportedly, countless ideas came in over the next decade, with reports of 17 drafts by somewhere between 12 and 18 writers. Wes Craven had no interest after his pitch perfect New Nightmare and was not sure how to unite a dream world character with a real world one. Horror author David J. Schow and Battlestar Galactica's Ron Moore took cracks at it. Ideas included a cult of Freddy worshippers called Fred Heads, Jason on trial for his crimes, and, reportedly, a boxing scene, a hockey scene, Freddy beamed into the sun, and Freddy collecting 13 dream demons.

In the end, Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, super fans of both series, pitched that the movie should simply be Freddy versus Jason fighting it out, with no mythology changes and no reinvented backstories, just building on what came before. They wanted something Wes Craven would approve of. Their draft ran a whopping two and a half hours, and David Goyer trimmed it to a much more manageable hour and 38 minutes.

Ronny Yu wanted the fights to feel like Rocky

New Line told agencies it would meet anyone, a decision it came to regret. It met around 60 directors, but the fans did not necessarily have the experience and the experienced directors were not necessarily fans. After Craven declined, Shaye returned to Hong Kong director Ronny Yu, who had initially passed. Shaye had seen The Bride with White Hair and Bride of Chucky, and he reeled Yu in by showing him choice selections from each franchise.

Yu loved old Hollywood monster movies like Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Mummy, and wanted to go back to basics without a ton of CGI. He pictured the visceral, raw fight between Rocky and Apollo Creed in Rocky as the perfect vibe. From Bride of Chucky, he had also learned not to take the monsters too seriously and to have a little fun with them.

Kane Hodder lost the Jason role to Ken Kirzinger

New Line had learned years before that the only Freddy was Robert Englund, so he got top billing. Jason was trickier. Ari Lehman played child Jason in the first film, and stuntmen played most later versions, including Steve Daskawisz and Warrington Gillette, Richard Brooker, Ted White, Tom Morga, who is the only actor to play Jason, Leatherface and Michael Myers, and C.J. Graham. Kane Hodder played him in parts seven through 10 and is widely considered the best Jason by fans. That Freddy hand in Jason Goes to Hell was actually Hodder's.

The writers and many involved assumed Hodder was their guy, so when stuntman Ken Kirzinger got the role, many were confused and a lot of fans were angry. Cunningham said Yu preferred Kirzinger, adding, "It was a shame on some level that Kane didn't get to do it." Yu denies the decision was his, saying the studio had Kirzinger on board before he agreed to direct. Hodder was never given an official reason, but it apparently came down to size and location. The film shot in Vancouver, where Kirzinger was a local, saving money, and the six foot two Hodder couldn't compete with Kirzinger at six foot six, or six foot eight in gear. Thankfully, Hodder did motion capture for a 2017 Jason game.

Monica Keena found chopping off Freddy's head cathartic

Monica Keena played final girl Lori, a name that's maybe a nod to Laurie from Halloween, which heavily inspired Friday the 13th. As a child, Keena was so traumatized by A Nightmare on Elm Street at a slumber party that she was afraid to sleep for a full year, and her mother taped a photo of Robert Englund beside her bed alongside Freddy. Keena said getting to chop off Freddy's head was quite cathartic.

Brad Renfro was originally cast as Will, but his personal demons got in the way and he was recast. John Ritter had starred in Yu's Bride of Chucky, so Yu cast his son Jason Ritter. Destiny's Child's Kelly Rowland played Kia in her first film acting role. Canadian locals included Katharine Isabelle, and a young Evangeline Lilly appears as a nonspeaking background actor. Brendan Fletcher played Mark, Zack Ward of A Christmas Story played his dead brother Bobby, and Bob Shaye cameos as the principal.

A forgotten Freddy uses Jason, and the ending changed after test screenings

Freddy has been forgotten and lost his power. For four years, adults locked up anyone who knew of him and gave their kids Hypnocil. Freddy searches hell for someone to manipulate, poses as Jason's dead mother, and sends him to Elm Street. As teens die, Freddy's legend spreads again, but Jason goes rogue. The teens bring the unconscious Jason home to Crystal Lake, Lori pulls Freddy into the real world, and Kelly Rowland gets a, let's say, dated and questionable monologue before being killed. Lori chops off Freddy's head.

The original ending, with Will's hand turning into Freddy's claws, test audiences apparently hated. Yu came up with Jason walking out of the water holding Freddy's head, inspired by Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now, and Shaye added the wink. One draft even had Pinhead from Hellraiser greeting them in hell: "Now, gentlemen, what seems to be the problem?" That would have been epic, but New Line didn't own the character.

Freddy vs. Jason respected both franchises equally

Released August 15, 2003, on a $30 million budget, the film grossed over $116 million worldwide, the most of any film from either franchise. Fans loved it, newcomers and critics were mixed, and hardcore fans consider it one of the best of the 17 films before it. It works first because creators from both sides, New Line and Bob Shaye alongside Sean Cunningham, were invested from the start. The writers gave each character equal time: Elm Street for the first half, Crystal Lake for the second, opening with scores from Charles Bernstein and Harry Manfredini.

It combined both formulas: teens, partying, untrustworthy adults, brutal deaths and violent dreams, recreating the campy 1980s slasher for an audience that had not seen it in a long time. It is full of nods: Hypnocil, the wall press from the first Nightmare, a glove screeching along a boiler room pipe, someone posing as Jason's mother, Jason's electrocution from Jason Takes Manhattan, and a first death in bed echoing Kevin Bacon and Johnny Depp.

The conflict was built in. Freddy was a child killer and Jason a child who died through neglect. Yu wanted the audience to invest more in Jason, whom he saw as a samurai that went a little nuts, loyal to his mother. The writers saw Freddy as a psychological manipulator, and Englund never wanted sympathy for him. These two are like fire and water and they were made for this fight.

The best kills and the best one liner

Jason's best kill is the flaming machete throw in the cornfield while he is on fire, a nod to the original Nightmare, where a stunt actor burned through one very long take. Freddy only has one kill, so it wins by default: he slashes Mark and sets his back on fire to spell out Freddy's back. Jason doesn't talk, but Freddy's best line comes when Kia, who wants a nose job, nods off: "Got your nose."

As for who won, yes, Freddy is decapitated, but the filmmakers felt he came out on top, as the wink shows. I'm just repeating what they said. The film reinvigorated both franchises, and each one had a reboot film: the 2009 Friday the 13th with Jared Padalecki and Derek Mears, and the 2010 Nightmare with Jackie Earle Haley. Shortly before I wrote this, Robert Englund received a long overdue star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash was planned and later released as a limited series comic, which makes me think I know what I should cover next.

So who do you think really came out on top, Freddy or Jason?