[MARKET VALUE]
With an unfinished script, no crew, and no budget, the producer of one of cinema’s greatest slasher series bet the house on a name. Turns out, 13 was his lucky number
Horror’s silent slayer Jason Voorhees and the Friday the 13th franchise have a killer marketing origin story. The billion-dollar classic about a man-child who avenges his mother’s beheading at Camp Crystal Lake is a classic case of fake it 'til you make it.
After Halloween’s unexpected success the year before—grossing more than $70 million on a $300,000 budget—Friday the 13th producer Sean Cunningham saw Hollywood’s hunger for horror and devised a bold plan to get his next project noticed. In the July 4, 1979 issue of Variety, Cunningham took a costly gamble, purchasing a full-page ad that declared Friday the 13th as “the most terrifying film ever made.” With its dramatic title breaking through glass, the ad piqued the interest of various studio execs. There was just one catch: The script hadn’t even been finished.
The fakeout paid dividends. The buzz and excitement around Friday the 13th sparked a bidding war among studios eager to join the horror wave. Paramount ultimately bought the rights for $1.5 million—a bargain, as it turned out. When Friday the 13th opened on May 9, 1980, critics panned it (the film sits at a 66% average score amongst critics on Rotten Tomatoes), but audiences couldn’t get enough. It became Paramount’s third-highest-grossing film that year, only trailing slapstick comedy Airplane! and John Travolta’s Urban Cowboy. It brought in an additional $20 million internationally, amassing a total of $59 million (about $236 million today when adjusted for inflation).
Friday the 13th cemented horror’s place in Hollywood and set the stage for clever and edgy marketing. As seen recently with the brilliant marketing behind the Smile franchise and viral promotional campaigns like The Blair Witch Project, horror continues to lead the way in innovative, zeitgeist-capturing marketing strategies.
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