Over two decades after Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees finally came face to face on their terms, the crossover movie that took years to come to fruition is now hacking into the streaming charts. The 2003 event movie Freddy vs. Jason is currently trending at number three on the HBO Max movie chart, with Wes Craven’s original 1984 classic A Nightmare on Elm Street just behind it in fourth position. As Halloween approaches and streamers bolster their spooky offerings, we can expect to see plenty more past horror hits hacking their way into the Top 10 on multiple platforms.

As a movie that was at one point the very definition of “development hell,” the idea of bringing Freddy and Jason together in one movie was the stuff of fanboy dreams (or nightmares, if you prefer) for years before it was finally realized. Although the idea had been talked about since the 1980s, and ended up being the subject of comic books and plenty of fan-fiction, the first real tease that a movie could potentially happen came in the heavily criticized Friday the 13th movie, Jason Goes to Hell. In its final moments, after the titular event had occurred, a familiar knife-fingered glove was seen bursting through the earth to claim the mask of Jason Voorhees.

However, at the time, it was still seen as nothing more than a joke, something that years later would have been added as a post-credit scene to get an eye-rolling chuckle after people sat through 8 minutes of credits. However, a decade after that tease, Freddy vs. Jason opened in cinemas taking the number one spot and ended up turning its $30 million budget into a $116 million box office haul – the highest grossing movie in either of its parent franchises. However, as well as bringing the two legends of horror together on screen, it also ended up being the killer of both franchises as that was where the story mostly ended for Freddy and Jason.

What Happened to the ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ and ‘Friday the 13th’ Franchises?

Freddy and Jason come to blows in Freddy vs. Jason New Line Cinema

The original cycle of the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises, which began in 1984 and 1980 respectively, effectively ended with Freddy vs. Jason. There were rumors of a sequel being in development at various points in time following the movie’s success, but none of them materialized. Then came the reboots.

In 2009, Friday the 13th was rebooted with a new movie, and A Nightmare on Elm Street attempted to reboot a year later. Both of these movies abandoned everything that had gone before, and tried to start over. While Jason’s new appearance was received better than most of the original movies, A Nightmare on Elm Street, which put Jackie Earle Haley in the role that will forever be associated with Robert Englund, did not fare well. From that point on, the franchises were both dead. Until now.

After years of legal fighting, the Friday the 13th franchise is returning with a new TV series, Crystal Lake, which will be a prequel series focusing on Pamela Voorhees, and reports of a new movie being in development. For those wondering whether we will be seeing Freddy Krueger slashing up Springwood teens again, there is going to be a bit longer to wait, as there are no projects featuring the character being worked on right now.

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