There were many rejected pitches for Freddy Vs Jason, but none were quite as bizarre as Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga’s take on the material which was inspired by the real-life OJ Simpson trial. While 2003’s Freddy Vs Jason was seen as a solid but unspectacular effort by many critics and fans of both franchises online, the slasher crossover’s production was anything but unspectacular. Freddy Vs Jason’s production was a mess of tangled rights, competing box-office hauls, and battling egos.
During the years that Freddy Vs Jason spent in Development Hell, the project went through countless iterations. Like the third Nightmare On Elm Street movie, there were numerous completed script drafts for Freddy Vs Jason, each of which offered a unique take on the simple premise. However, one Freddy Vs Jason pitch stuck out as significantly stranger than the rest.
While 2003’s Freddy Vs Jason wasn’t perfect, there is no denying that Ronny Yu’s finished slasher showdown was nowhere near as bizarre as screenwriters Ronald D Moore and Brannon Braga’s idea for Freddy Vs Jason. The flawed Freddy Vs Jason that viewers got could have been a lot harder to follow and take seriously. However, there were some meta-comedy elements in this proposed Freddy Vs Jason script that could potentially have worked.
Why Freddy Vs Jason Took So Long
While fans of both slasher series wanted to see Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees duke it out for decades before Freddy Vs Jason finally reached the big screen, the creators of the Nightmare On Elm Street and the Friday the 13th franchises had their own ideas. First, Freddy went meta in New Nightmare, then Jason went to Hell, and then later went to space in Star Trek: The Next Generation scriptwriters Moore and Braga’s draft of Freddy Vs Jason never making it to the screen.
Freddy Vs Jason's Meta Pitch
In a bizarrely meta move, Moore and Braga wanted Jason to go on trial for his crimes in Freddy Vs Jason. Attorney Ruby Jarvis would have been this version of Freddy Vs Jason’s heroine, defending Jason against countless murder charges and finding out about his connection to Freddy in the process. One of the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise’s silliest mistakes saw the franchise turn Freddy into a more comedic, less threatening figure, but this version of Freddy Vs Jason would have firmly reinstated Freddy’s outright evil edge. In the script, Ruby discovers that Freddy was the one who killed Jason (albeit indirectly) when he beat the Friday the 13th villain during his childhood before pushing him out onto Crystal Lake in a canoe punctured by Freddy's trademark razor-fingered glove.
Freddy Vs Jason’s OJ Simpson Satire
As proven by this justification for Jason’s beef with Freddy, this iteration of Freddy Vs Jason had its clever moments. The Freddy Vs Jason treatment looked into what made Jason a monster and made the character more sympathetic while also making Freddy feel fresh, something Nightmare On Elm Street’s remake couldn’t manage a decade later. However, these story elements weren’t enough to make up for the weirdest problem with Moore and Braga’s script. This version of Freddy Vs Jason’s trial plot was clearly inspired by “parodying” the real-life OJ Simpson trial, an element that was not only in poor taste but also would have dated the movie almost instantly. The goofy idea of Jason being brought to court and put on trial was also intended to spoof the far-fetched premise of the Friday the 13th series itself, although, in this iteration, Jason was human and not a supernatural revenant.
These elements didn’t really play, since a human Jason going on trial for his crimes wasn’t as over-the-top as the almost un-killable, vaguely supernatural killer of the later Friday the 13th movies having his day in court would have been. By rebooting the Friday the 13th franchise’s premise and making Jason more recognizably human, Freddy Vs Jason ironically made its goofy premise too realistic and not heightened enough to be inherently comedic. However, the OJ Simpson comparisons would likely have always doomed this dated subplot already, so these comparatively minor quibbles didn’t do too much to further derail things.
Would A Meta Freddy Vs Jason Have Worked?
A meta version of Freddy Vs Jason could have worked, but not this meta take on Freddy Vs Jason. Mocking the OJ Simpson trial was an off-color topical gag that would have been tired by the time Freddy Vs Jason was produced (and utterly inexplicable by the time Freddy Vs Jason actually arrived in 2003). However, New Nightmare already proved that “Freddy attacks the crew making bad Nightmare On Elm Street sequels” could work, so “Jason finally gets arrested and charged with his crimes” might not have been dead in the water. However, the Nightmare On Elm Street/Friday the 13th crossover wasn’t the right venue for this plot.
A movie that forced Jason to face the rap sheet he had accumulated could be fun and a face-off between the two horror icons also had potential, but cramming both stories into one movie was too much ambition for a single plot. A movie about Freddy and Jason fighting always needed to focus mostly on the titular competition, as proven by critics and fans bemoaning the fact that Yu’s Freddy Vs Jason spent too long fleshing out its teen characters (making Freddy Vs Jason one of the only movies in either franchise that can boast complaints of too much character developments). As such, Freddy Vs Jason was better off dropping this surreal OJ Simpson-inspired story.
