Peacock and A24 will be proceeding with a new showrunner for the Friday the 13th prequel series.
Bryan Fuller confirmed today on social media that he is exiting the series.
“For reasons beyond our control, A24 has elected to go a different way with the material,” Fuller wrote. “We hope the final product will be something Friday the 13th fans all over the world will enjoy.”
You can see Fuller’s entire message below.
As we previously reported, Fuller’s prequel series, titled Crystal Lake, had scored a straight-to-series order at Peacock in 2022, with A24 as the studio. Fuller was to serve as writer, executive producer and showrunner, with Victor Miller, who wrote the original screenplay of the 1980 movie, Marc Toberoff, Miller’s copyright attorney, and Rob Barsamian, who produced the original movie, also exec producing.
The original Friday the 13th movie, which starred Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Laurie Bartram and Kevin Bacon, follows a group of teenage camp counselors who are murdered at summer camp.
Palmer plays Mrs. Vorhees who initially kills a pair of counselors in 1959 at Camp Crystal Lake after her son, Jason, supposedly drowned, before going on a murder spree in 1979 when a group tries to reopen the camp. Jason turns up at the end to attempt to kill King’s Alice after she killed his murderous mother.
It was directed by Sean Cunningham..
The Peacock series order followed a legal battle between Miller, Toboroff and Barsamian.
The legal case, which was decided by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and you can read here, saw Miller win the rights to the character that he created after a copyright termination battle. The producers of the original film – Horror Inc., which includes Barsamian, had argued that Miller’s involvement was work for hire but a judge ruled that it wasn’t. The case cleared the way for Miller to license a prequel series.
Peter White contributed to this report.