If anyone thought that the battle between Jason and Freddy was only in the minds of the series' makers, the summer of 1989 disproved all such theories. Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan was due to open on July 28, a mere two weeks before the arrival of the latest Freddy installment, A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child. It was an event heralded by the genre press months in advance. "It's the box office battle of the summer!" declared Fangoria magazine in one of its many over-the-top cover stories. Yet because the Nightmare series' profits had been on the rise just as Friday the 13th's had begun to decline, the odds-on favorite was Freddy. But the eventual outcome would surprise everyone—they both lost.
Opening on 1,683 screens in the U.S., Jason Takes Manhattan pulled in $6.2 million in its first three days, a new low for the series. Its final box office take of $14.3 million, for 3.6 million paid admissions, was hardly encouraging, and Jason Takes Manhattan became the lowest-grossing installment in the franchise to date. Although the film still proved profitable given its relatively modest budget—especially when profits from home video and ancillary markets were factored into the equation—one would be hard pressed to call Jason Takes Manhattan a hit by any standard.
Freddy, too, faced a sudden and surprising level of audience apathy. The Dream Child opened to a slightly better $8.1 million weekend gross, but it, too, wilted in the box office sun, eventually grossing a disappointing $22.2 million—an embarrassing come-down from the nearly $50 million earned by Nightmare 4. Perhaps Freddy's relentless overexposure had worn thin even among the series' fans. Or had audiences finally grown tired of Jason, Freddy and the whole "pop slasher" phenomenon? Whatever the case, the lackluster result inspired Frank Mancuso, Jr. and Paramount to take a step back, reflect on nearly a decade of success, and look toward a possible future that, for the first time, did not include Friday the 13th.
This page Another movie, another death for Jason Voorhees. "We weren't going to have animated worms coming out of his face or anything like that," says director Rob Hedden. "Instead, I had this idea of him being melted by chemistry." Here, the helmer's original concept for Jason's post-toxic waste demise is realized by Part VIII's special effects team.
ROB HEDDEN:
I was working on the movie up until the last possible second. The print had been done but we were still monkeying with the sound mix. And the mix was done right across the street from Mann's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Blvd., where we eventually had the premiere, so I could see the Chinese out the window. They literally had to come in and take me off of it. Then 36 to 48 hours later, it was in theatres. Literally, I finished it two days before it was released, and they had to make 1,100 some odd prints.
I thought the teaser trailer was brilliant. It was done during the filming—Paramount hired a New York ad group to make a teaser with no actual footage from the movie. They said, "We have a whole campaign we are planning that will play on the comedic aspect of the movie you're making." So we had this sweet tracking shot from behind a man, but with the music playing, made it seem like a romantic comedy. Then slowly we push in, then the man turns around and it's Jason. That teaser was so successful, just so good. If I had gotten to do more stuff in New York as I originally planned, there would have been more stuff like that in there.
And when Paramount saw that teaser, they bumped up our release date by two weeks. Then Jason Takes Manhattan opened and only made $6 million in its first three days. And it fell off quick—there was competition first from Turner & Hooch, then Nightmare 5 came along and blasted it, too. Timing is everything for a release. Still, the studio made back the negative cost in the first three days.
JENSEN DAGGETT:
I thought the finished product was an interesting twist to the Friday the 13ths that I had seen before. It tried to incorporate a big city, a ship and even toxic waste—so very 1980s. It was a lot to undertake. And I thought the performances were good. But it was not quite as scary as I remembered other Fridays from my past. That may be because I was there to witness the shooting of it, or it could be because I was very young when we used to sit home on a Friday night and rent those movies. So I would be curious to know how the fans would rank the suspense factor of ours.
V.C. DUPREE:
I went to the premiere at Mann's Chinese, and then after that, Kane Hodder hired a limo, and we went out and did the rounds down in Orange County. And the surreal part was that every drive-in we passed, there's your face—50 feet tall! This was my first starring role, and it all was just so larger than life. After we got to Orange County, we pulled up and I saw tons of kids and people outside this one theater. I got out of the car thinking that maybe Oprah was there or something! And they just swarmed the car. They had already seen the movie and somehow they knew we were coming. That was my most memorable moment of the whole experience.
Industry-wise, it was nothing but a good thing. The increased visibility was really noticeable for me. Most black guys in genre movies, they don't get to have highlighted roles. And that's really ironic because black people patronize these movies. So for my character to be that prominent, people really responded to it. Friday the 13th had a notoriety that, at that point in my career, I really needed. It was a great experience all around.
PETER MARK RICHMAN:
I saw it at the premiere. I don't know what I thought of it. But I do remember some guy, who had interviewed me in the past and who writes stuff about a lot of films, was sitting in front of me. And he said, rather loudly, "For Christ sake! Why would he ever want to do a picture like this?" Well, that did not feel particularly good.
KELLY HU:
I was happy with the movie in general, although I'm never happy with my own work. Ever. But it was exciting to be a part of something like that, something with such a great following.
I remember that my parents didn't see it with me—they saw it after, just to see it in a real theater. And they actually timed the movie from start to finish, and decided that I died exactly halfway through the movie. And my mother was hiding her eyes—she couldn't look when I died. My father just came to me and said, "Good death scene!"
SCOTT REEVES:
When Part VIII came out, I got a lot of recognition from being in it. It was a big Paramount film, so it kind of established me a little bit more in that world. And I remember being really happy with the box office. I would read the numbers, and think, "It's already made $10 million dollars!" So it was great for me. Though, interestingly enough, I never went on to do another horror film. So I didn't really use it to continue in that direction, in terms of my acting career. Not for any particular reason, I just went on and did other things.
MARTIN CUMMINS:
I was down in Los Angeles for pilot season, and Rob called me and invited me and my dad to see it at the Mann's Chinese. And I had never seen one of those movies. To be honest, they are not my cup of tea—I'm the guy always turning away from the screen during horror movies. But I thought Part VIII was just hilarious. And the funniest thing is that my little British grandmother went to see Jason Takes Manhattan at the local movie theater by herself, just because I was in it. And I remember her coming to me afterward, telling me, "Darling, you know I went to see your movie. And I hope you don't mind, but I left after the gentleman with the hockey mask killed you."
ALEX DIAKUN:
I was invited to the premiere down in Los Angeles, but I didn't go down. I actually never made the switch, to try to pursue work in the States—I never even got a green card. It just seemed better to buck all of that traffic down there for auditions and stay in Vancouver.
I did eventually see the movie. I have a copy at home that I bought at a used DVD store—it was in one of those bargain bins. I was a little disappointed, because when I first read the script I thought it had a little bit better of a story than the other Fridays, but then it turned out to be just the same old same old. And my character was supposed to be kind of the red herring in the film, but then that wasn't completely developed. I don'
t know. It's still probably as good as anything else on my resume, though, as you get to do a lot of B movies up here in Canada.
FRED MOLLIN:
I didn't go to a screening or the premiere. I went to a matinee in Toronto and I remember being disappointed with the sound mix. I thought the music was too low most of the time. Of course, nine times out of 10, a film or TV composer is going to tell you that the music is too low in the final mix and that sound effects and ambient sound are too high. But I remember liking the movie, and I was extremely proud that it came together as well as it did. I think Rob happens to be such a gifted guy. I love his sensibilities. Yeah, Jason Takes Manhattan has got a campy flair, obviously even more campy now, but it was great fun.
The never-ending battle between Friday the 13th and the Motion Picture Association of America continued to make headlines in the weeks leading up to the release of Jason Takes Manhattan. This time, however, the filmmakers and the MPAA were not at odds over the movie itself, but rather its poster. The film's original one-sheet (left) was initially rejected by the organization's Advertising Administration due to its depiction of Jason tearing through the famous "I Love New York" logo with a bloody knife and hockey mask. Paramount Pictures would be forced to resubmit a new, "bloodless" version of the poster (right), which was approved by the MPAA, and the poster began to circulate across the country as the film's July 28th release date loomed. But the controversy would not end there. The New York City Council and its Board of Tourism were no fans of the attention the poster was attracting on the city's subways and airports and threatened a lawsuit, claiming that Paramount Pictures had failed to secure permission to use the trademarked "I Love New York" logo. Although Paramount would eventually withdraw the poster from circulation (it remains a hot commodity on the collectible market), the public fracas guaranteed the film plenty of free advertising. The studio would eventually replace the offending poster with the subsequent "Style B" design (next image).
ROB HEDDEN:
Frank Mancuso, Jr. and Barbara Sachs warned me before I even shot a frame of film that this movie would get trashed, review-wise. So I was prepared for the worst. But this was my first movie. And when you put your heart into something and try to do the best job you can do, and then somebody tells you in a few paragraphs that you're a piece of crap and you shouldn't have even been born, well, it still hurts.
It's funny, there were a handful of good reviews. Leonard Maltin liked it, which shocked me. But also the guy who was the regular reviewer for Daily Variety. He said the direction was stylish and a bunch of things where I was like, "Oh my God, I can't believe it!" However, when all the reviewers came out and said, "What is this crap about Jason taking Manhattan?" I sat there and I nodded. They're right. I cannot defend that. That was the only thing that hurt for me, because I'm the writer and director. Maybe if they only would have been able to read my outline, they would have gone easier on me.
You have to ask, however, that even if I had made a different Friday the 13th movie, if it would have been Jason in Manhattan and 99 percent of it would have taken place in New York, and it would have had a $10 million budget, and I would have been able to do all the things I wanted to do, would it have made any more money? Maybe. I don't think the critics would have given it any more praise. And I really believe that if I had that extra money and made a real Jason in New York movie, it still wouldn't have made more profit. Because let's say it made another $5 million at the box office. So what? It would have cost more, too. It would have been a wash.
I'm sure Paramount was always hoping for a new Friday to make more money than the last one. Part VIII didn't make as much money as Part VII. Maybe they thought they'd done as much as they could do, and that it's never going to get better. The difference is that Part VII cost less money to make than Part VIII. So they made less profit even if the box office was the same. Maybe if they hadn't released Nightmare on Elm Street Part 5 a couple of weeks later, and my movie had made an extra $10 million, it would have been different. But the fans would still have felt the way they felt about the film.
RANDOLPH CHEVELDAVE:
I regret not being of an age and sufficient experience to have done one of the earlier Friday the 13th movies. Because by the time Part VIII came around, it was like The Mummy Meets Abbott and Costello. I don't think Jason would have survived another Camp Crystal Lake movie. It was either move him someplace else, or lose him altogether. So I think from that perspective, absolutely the right thing was done.
Of course, nobody's happy when you have the lowest grossing entry of the series. At least it was up until that time. The box office for any of the Friday the 13th movies was always based on body count and gallons of blood. That is what the audience had come to expect. So to not deliver on their expectations was perhaps a mistake. We felt it was time for Jason to go away from the camp. But perhaps it was not time for him to become gentler. If I had to do it over again, it would be a slightly more violent, bloodier movie. I don't know if it would be possible to make it that and still have it retain some of its slyness, but I think that tightrope could have been walked more successfully.
KANE HODDER:
I was a little bit disappointed. Just because of the success of Part VII—I thought, "Hey, this is going to be great!" And then Part VIII only did OK. Still, I didn't think it was the end of the series for Paramount. I thought, maybe, they might still do another one.
MICHAEL SHEEHY:
Frank Jr. was always looking towards the future. He had finally become more established after Internal Affairs and some of the other movies we had in development, and he wanted to go beyond Friday the 13th. I remember Frank Jr. commenting, not long after Part VIII came out, that he wasn't planning on doing any more.
I don't know if this is what the fans want to hear, but I don't remember any of us being affected one way or the other, because we felt the film series was going to be resurrected in some form eventually anyway. We knew they weren't really going to end because they had been pretty successful. In retrospect, perhaps the only thing I do remember feeling bad about was thinking a "Jason vs. Freddy" movie could still be a smash hit. I wish I had done more to try and make that happen.
FRANK MANCUSO, JR.:
It was the law of diminishing returns. There was no bigger reason than that. They were doing progressively less and less box office, and I just felt that everybody had had their fill of Jason.
FRANK MANCUSO, SR., President of Production, Paramount Pictures:
I remember the decision as being something of that moment, that we would simply not do another Friday the 13th next year, or maybe even the year after that. Then I left Paramount in 1991, and eventually they sold off the rights to somebody else.
At the time it had become stale, in our minds. When you've stretched it as long as we did, I don't know if there was anything else different you could do with it—although we did use the title for the television series, but that never crossed over to the movies. So it was no different than The Godfather, or Indiana Jones. How many can you make? What new ideas can you reasonably come up with?
Look at Star Trek. The most successful one we had was the one with the whales, where they came back to Earth, right? And that created a new audience altogether—it brought in mainstream audiences that normally would not see a Star Trek film. That never did quite happen with Friday the 13th. It went from this level way up high, to down a little bit, then back up again, before it kind of took a while to quietly slip back down. And then it just tapered off.
ROB HEDDEN:
Jason Takes Manhattan made them a profit, trust me—if I'm still collecting money from it, so are they. Did I kill the franchise? No. They made Jason Goes to Hell and Jason X, and, of course, Freddy vs. Jason. Honestly, I did the best job I could do, for better or for worse, and that's all I can do. Personally, it's something I'll always have. Friday the 13th will be around long after I'm gone. Sean Cunningham created an amazing legacy that has continued to endure. I just feel incredibly
honored that I got to be a part of it and put my little stamp on it. I hope I was able to tie up all of those movies in a nice little package. I am just thrilled that I got to be involved. And nobody will ever be able to take that away from me.
From left: Domestic one-sheet; unreleased domestic video poster; Japanese video poster.
There was one more farewell to come. At the conclusion of its third season in May 1991, Paramount Television would unceremoniously pull the plug on Friday the 13th: The Series. Although it was still one of the highest-rated dramatic series in national syndication, protests, not profits, would ultimately result in the show's premature demise. Amid the vocal opposition of the Moral Majority, many of The Series' major advertisers became skittish at a potential backlash and began to pull their support from the show. It was a curtain call that deeply affected many of those most intimately involved with the television series, and the anger at its cancellation persists to this day.
FRED MOLLIN:
To be honest, the end of the television series was the real heartbreak. I loved the people involved. Frank Mancuso, Jr. happened to be incredibly supportive and a great cheerleader. He trusted me. I have nothing but great memories and appreciation for Frank. And the folks who ran the show, the producers, the editors, the actors, everyone involved, I just loved working with them.
I have very strong memories of being extremely angry and depressed and pissed because the family was breaking up. On top of that, I was really proud of the show. I felt that we had done three years of good supernatural TV. I really thought it was going to be a big cult show forever and that this was being pulled way too early. It really was the end of an era.
Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th (Enhanced Edition) Page 65
