Friday the 13th Director Reveals Potential Release Window for Crystal Lake Prequel Series

Sean S. Cunningham, who directed the original Friday the 13th, has revealed a potential release window for Crystal Lake.

Crystal Lake is the forthcoming Friday the 13th prequel series that is being made for Peacock by A24. Bryan Fuller was originally tapped as the series’ showrunner before he then left the project in May 2024. In August 2024, it was revealed that Welcome to Derry’s Brad Caleb Kane had been hired to replace Fuller.

Per Bloody Disgusting, Cunningham said that, while there was no official confirmation as of yet, he believes the series is eyeing a Halloween 2025 release window at this time.

What did Friday the 13th’s Sean S. Cunningham say about Crystal Lake?

“Last I heard, they’re talking about shooting it in Australia at the end of this year and releasing on Halloween 2025,” Cunningham said. “But I’ve heard versions of that story for so long, I don’t put a lot of credibility into it. There’s just so many things that can go sideways.”

Cunningham said of the series, “Some time ago, the rights expired on the original script, so then there became doubt about who owns what after 35 years. That was being worked out by lawyers, and we were trying to figure out what we were going to do. We were trying to do a TV series, which we actually got pretty far down the road on. I was very happy with that. I thought it was going to be a lot of fun, and then the rights thing blew up and the TV series got postponed, and then the pandemic arrived.

“Finally, A24 decided that they would hook up with Peacock and do a Friday the 13th TV series. They were gonna hire Bryan Fuller, a very good writer. In the world of television, the showrunner, the main writer, is the star. That’s the person you have to have complete faith in, because it’s not the ability to write one story; it’s the ability to tell a new story every week. That’s very, very hard, and very few people can do it.

“Bryan got the job, and it was greenlit. It was going forward, they started to set up the writers’ room, and they didn’t like the road he was going down. They felt it was gonna be too dark. So they abandoned it and then hired another writer [Brad Caleb Kane].”

Brandon Schreur

Brandon Schreur has been writing about comics, movies, television shows, and all things pop culture for roughly five years. He's a lifelong cinephile who spends way, way too much money buying Blu-rays and trade paperbacks. You can find him on twitter at @brandonschreur.