I’ve written about the upcoming Crystal Lake series a few times before. As a big fan of the Friday the 13th franchise I am, as I expect many of you are as well, interested to see what new form it will take in this latest incarnation. I went in-depth with everything we knew and assumed about Crystal Lake back when it was first announced in 2022, but a lot has changed since then. So, this article is a much-needed update on what has changed, what remains the same, and what we might be able to expect from Crystal Lake.
What Remains the Same
Some of the basics of what we reported back in 2022 are still the same. Crystal Lake is still being produced by A24, and it will still stream on Peacock.
Crystal Lake is also still being produced by Victor Miller (the writer of the script and creator of the characters in the original Friday the 13th film), Robert Barsamian (the president of Horror, Inc. which owns the rights to many of the elements in the Friday the 13th sequels), and Marc Toberoff (producer of many films including Predator: Badlands, Hellraiser 2022, and the Jason Universe short Sweet Revenge).
It is also still true that Crystal Lake has full access to basically everything seen in the film series (except the Friday the 13th title). That’s not to say we’ll see everything, but the producers have compiled the rights so that the creative team can pull from the entirety of the franchise (take a look at our summary of the legal drama here). However, the biggest changes to Crystal Lake since its original announcement come from the creative side.
What Has Changed
It was originally announced that Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies) would be the showrunner for Crystal Lake. That changed in August of 2024 when Brad Caleb Kane was announced as the new showrunner for the series after Fuller left due to creative differences with A24.
If you’re reading this, chances are you’re already a fan of Brad Caleb Kane’s work; he is also the executive producer and showrunner for IT: Welcome to Derry. That alone shows Kane’s success in leading the production of a prequel series for an established and highly popular horror franchise. Kane was also an executive producer for the excellent Bruce-Lee-inspired martial arts series Warrior (2019-2023), as well as the pirate series Black Sails (2014-2017).
What Can We Expect?
We don’t know the full extent of what Bryan Fuller’s Crystal Lake would have been, but Brad Caleb Kane recently spoke about his version of the series. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly in an article published on December 9th, 2025, Kane said that the series is “a paranoid ’70s thriller.” He said that Crystal Lake “has all of the DNA of a slasher without quite being a slasher.” That quote might be a bit disheartening for fans of the film franchise, but Kane did promise “rivers of blood” and “ingenious kill sequences.”
Are Kane’s words another example of a filmmaker trying to avoid putting their work into a category they feel is too rigid? I mean, a slasher with psychological themes is still a slasher, despite people who might want to distance themselves from the term. We’ll see how it plays out when Crystal Lake is released.
Plot details are still hard to come by, but we do know that it is a prequel series described as a story about “a mother who had given up a singing career to raise a special needs child and takes a dark turn when she loses her son.” So, Jason’s mother, Pamela Voorhees, will be the focus of the story. We also know that Jason Voorhees will appear in the series as a young boy. There have been rumors about Jason appearing as an adult, but that has not been officially confirmed since Brad Caleb Kane took over.
Other recognizable characters that have been confirmed for the series are Crazy Ralph, Officer Dorf, and the two camp counselors who are slain in the very first scene of the 1980 movie: Claudette and Barry.
Other than that, we don’t know much about the story’s direction or any additional character roles. We don’t even know if this prequel series will follow the exact same continuity established in the 1980 original, or if it will spin it in a slightly different direction. Crystal Lake was originally envisioned as a “pre-remake-quel,” but that was before the change in showrunners.
Filming for the first season of Crystal Lake began in June of 2025 and wrapped a few months later in October. The season will be eight episodes long. We can expect to stream Crystal Lake on Peacock in 2026, though no release date has been announced.
The Cast and Crew of Crystal Lake
The following lists only include officially confirmed cast and crew announcements. IMDB contains additional cast members, but anyone you see on IMDB who is not listed below can be traced back to reports by fan/rumor/scoop sites (or sites which don’t include sources) which may or may not be accurate.
Cast
Directors
- Michael Lennox director episodes 101-103
- Celine Held co-director episodes 104-106
- Logan George co-director episodes 104-106
- Quten Tran director episodes 107-108
