The Friday the 13th franchise is in a bit of a rough patch. We haven't had a good installment in years, and many fans have begun to wonder what it will take to properly get the murders at Camp Crystal Lake back on track. In fact, Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday director Adam Marcus has an idea, and it sounds like he's incredibly interested in exploring a spinoff focusing on Creighton Duke. During a recent interview on the Without Your Head podcast, Marcus explained:
Creighton Duke didn't die. There's the answer. He did not die. The way I shot it was to give you this moment of 'Oh no!', but honestly, he exhales, but you don't really see the light go out of his eyes. And to that end, my new production company Skelton Crew is basically doing something to resurrect Creighton Duke as a standalone character.
For the uninitiated, Creighton Duke was a character in Jason Goes To Hell portrayed by Steven Williams. A bounty hunter with profound knowledge of the Voorhees family, Duke went after Jason to avenge the death of his girlfriend. Though he was seemingly killed towards the end of the movie (fun fact: if he had died, he would've been Jason's 110th victim), Adam Marcus wants fans to know that the character's death was more ambiguous than previously assumed, and that his production company has a plan in place to bring the character back.
Though a Friday the 13th movie without Jason Voorhees might seem blasphemous at first, it's worth remembering the history of the franchise when we examine Adam Marcus' recent comments on the Without Your Head Podcast. Specifically, we need to acknowledge the fact that Jason wasn't even the killer in the original movie; his mother Pamela was. Moreover, the initial concept behind the Friday the 13th series was to take an anthology approach to the movies (similar to what Halloween was supposed to do, but never did) before the creative team behind the series opted to stick with Jason. With all of that in mind, it's incredibly interesting to wonder what a movie focusing on Creighton Duke could do for the series.
Of course, we do need to recognize that this doesn't guarantee the fact that the movie will actually happen. The horror genre is full of these hypothetical scenarios (such as the Chucky vs. Freddy idea pitched by Don Mancini), so we will have to wait and see if anything comes of it.
Only time will tell if this Creighton Duke-centric Friday the 13th project ever gets off of the ground. If nothing else, it shows us that there could be a future for the series if the powers that be ever want to move away from Jason Voorhees and focus on something else. For now, make sure to check out our movie premiere guide to see what films are definitely coming in 2018!
