The horror genre is filled with franchises that never seem to die, much like their merch-emblazoning killers, with the Friday the 13th seriesstanding tall within that group. But you know what can occasionally be scarier than psychotic mommies and masked slashers? Copyright issues! [Cue the Wilhelm scream.] A tangled web ofbehind-the-scenes legal battles basically divorced Jason Voorhees from F13 branding for years — see also: Child’s Play and Don Mancini’s Chucky — but that dearth of entrail-covered machetes and pitchforks is 100% over.
Thanks in large part to Horror Inc. and its head honcho, Robert Barsamian, fans are getting a Jason-aissance, as it were, with a variety of upcoming horror movies and other multimedia projects in development that will fall under the umbrella branding of the Jason Universe (stylized as Un1v3rse), which was first unveiled in May 2024. That slate also includes the Peacock prequel series heading to streaming in 2026, and the goal is to keep adding more projects that are worthy of brandishing the supernatural entity’s name.
I cannot wait for each and every new project that delves into the Voorhees family, the camp, the lake and everything else. So let’s take a look at what we know for sure is on the way.
Jason Universe Movies: New Feature In The Works Following “Sweet Revenge” Short
Friday the 13th first hit theaters in May 9, 1980, and I think most fans would agree that it should always be considered a film franchise first and foremost, regardless of how many other versions of the story are in the works. With that in mind, let’s focus on Jason’s cinematic future, while also celebrating his first official “Jason Universe” appearance.
Mike P. Nelson’s “Sweet Revenge” – Released
It wasn’t until the sequel when Pamela Voorhees’ kiddo truly took over as the “face” of the franchise, but this isn’t the “Pamela Universe,” so it only makes sense that the first official piece of storytelling from Horror Inc. would center on Jason Voorhees himself, as well as a few unsuspecting victims.
Mike P. Nelson, the director of Wrong Turn and the upcoming Silent Night, Deadly Night remake, helmed the short film Sweet Revenge to showcase Jason’s first on-screen kills since Platinum Dunes’ 2009 reboot. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel or anything, but it’s fun and delivers about as much blood spatter as one could hope for in less than 13 minutes (without ignoring character development, story and logic, of course).
Check it out below for a possible taste of what’s to come, should Nelson end up landing the gig of directing a new F13 movie.
Untitled Friday The 13th Movie – Announced
\Coinciding with the public release of “Sweet Revenge,” Horror Inc. Vice President Robbie Barsamian revealed at San Diego Comic-Con 2025 that early development is happening for a new movie, and the way he worded it at the time made it both interesting and difficult to speculate on. Here’s how he put it (via Bloody Disgusting):
I can tell you that a new sequel movie and new sequel game are at the top of our list. It’s where most of our energy’s going right now. And I can tell you finally we’re in a position to deliver on that. While we’re not officially announcing with our partners today, both are coming. They’re both in the works and they’re both coming.
The announcement understandably sparked a huge wave of excitement both at SDCC and beyond. (We’ll talk about the video game side of that later.) Unfortunately, no major updates have surfaced in the meantime, and so it still isn’t known quite yet if Barsamian was indicating the Jason Universe movie would be a direct (or spiritual) sequel to a specific Friday the 13th movie, or perhaps Sweet Revenge itself. He may have also been using the term more loosely to mean the new feature would follow the upcoming TV show.
It would be interesting for a new movie to go the route of David Gordon Green’s Halloween and Exorcist: Believer by semi-ignoring less-celebrated sequels, given how increasingly ludicrous Friday the 13th sequel plots got with each new movie. Would I still take a space-set Jason X 2 if it were the only possible project? Absolutely.
Jason Universe TV And Streaming:
Even if horror fans are most excited to see Jason return to the big screen, I am very intrigued to see how all the creatives involved are going to expand this relatively simple fictional universe for episodic storytelling.
Crystal Lake (Streaming Series) – Currently Filming
- Release Date: TBA 2026
- Platform: Peacock
- Creator/Showrunner: Brad Caleb Kane
- Cast:
Linda Cardellini (Pamela Voorhees
- Callum Vinson (Jason Voorhees)
- William Catlett (Levon Brooks)
- Devin Kessler (Briana Brooks)
- Cameron Scoggins (Dorf)
- Gwendolyn Sundstrom (Grace)
- Nick Cordileone (Ralph)
- Producers: Brad Caleb Kane, Victor Miller, Marc Toberoff, Robert M. Barsamian, Robert P. Barsamian, Stuart Manashil, Michael Lennox
- Studio: A24
Peacock’s Crystal Lake series‘ existence preceded the Jason Universe announcement by around 18 months, as it first went into development back in October 2022, with Hannibal and American Gods creator Bryan Fuller as its maestro (and with Robert Barsamian producing). However, in May 2024, Fuller was fired from the project, with creative differences being blamed, and with that timing coinciding with the rebranding shift. Other names that were reportedly temporarily attached were Scream writer Kevin Williamson, Charlize Theron, Channel Zero creator Nick Antosca, Cube director Vincenzo Natali and Boys Don’t Cry director Kimberly Peirce.
The dust settled in August 2024, with IT: Welcome To Derry and Lodge 49 writer Brad Caleb Kane taking on showrunner duties. Casting then got underway, with filming kicking off in April 2025, with a goal of wrapping the first season in October of the same year. So far, no teasers or official images have been unveiled, but I cannot wait to see what Kane has in store.
All that’s known about the plot at this point is that it’s a prequel tale that centers in part on Linda Cardellini‘s Pamela Voorhees, and that some familiar characters from the first film are included, such as the bike-riding doomsayer Ralph. What’s more, the show is filming at the same camp location where Sean S. Cunningham directed the first film.
Jason Universe Video Games: New Project Announced
Friday the 13th has never exactly been a franchise synonymous with gaming, despite early efforts for PCs and the NES, though Jason himself has been utilized in other series such as Mortal Kombat, Call of Duty and Multiversus. The most noteworthy game to date was the asymmetrical killer-vs-prey multiplayer release Friday the 13th: The Game, which launched in 2018. Unfortunately, those aforementioned rights issues were once again a problem, and the game’s servers were shut down in 2020, with the title getting delisted altogether in 2023.
Attempts to bring that game back online in a more polished form were essentially squashed by Horror Inc.’s legal team, though it wasn’t until July 2025 that the company revealed its own dedicated efforts to develop a Jason-centric video game. Partnered along with the movie news, the new game was also referred to as a “sequel,” though without further information about what that means, or which game studio(s) is handling the development.
Jason Universe’s Other New Projects: Halloween Horror Nights & More
During the SDCC panel, Horror Inc. CMO Sheri Conn shared the following sentiment when addressing the company’s overall interest in delivering more Jason and F13 to fans in just about any respect possible. As Conn put it:
We’ve been working for the last few years really hard behind the scenes to bring new entertainment, gaming, theme park experiences, collectibles, collabs—bring it all back to life.
To that end, arguably Jason’s biggest impact on 2025 outside of the Sweet Revenge short has been the Jason Universe haunted house crafted for Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights 34, which itself marks the first time the masked killer has been showcased at the event since 2015’s Freddy vs. Jason maze. By and large, fans seem to be loving the classic approach, and it’s a good sign that we’ll get more themed experiences like that in the future.
Outside of interactive fare, the Jason Universe is also bringing lots of Friday the 13th-oriented merchandise to mall stores and horror boutiques everywhere, from Halloween costumes to backpacks to glow-in-the-dark hockey masks to any kind of drinking apparatus imaginable. I have to assume we aren’t far from someone opening up a real-life Camp Crystal Lake as a themed weekend getaway. (Or a non-get-away, if you know what I mean.)
In summary, the future couldn’t be brighter for everyone’s favorite drowned-boy-turned-supernatural-death-machine, with tons of new Jason Universe projects and merch on the horizon. And no matter how fast you try to run away, they’ll always be right behind you.
