The Friday The 13th Reboot's Cliffhanger Ending Explained By Writers

The 2009 "Friday the 13th" reboot ends on a shocking cliffhanger, as no one knows if Clay Miller (played by Jared Padalecki) and his sister, Whitney (Amanda Righetti), survive Jason Voorhees' (Derek Mears) last hurrah before the credits roll. However, the writers of the horror film, Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, have since revealed that the Millers didn't get a happy ending.

In the movie, Clay searches for Whitney after she disappears at Crystal Lake. He finds her, as well as the hockey-masked murder machine with serious mommy issues. While the Millers stab Jason in the chest and toss him in the lake, he still springs one more surprise attack at the end, breaking through the dock and grabbing hold of Whitney. According to Shannon and Swift's comments to ComicBook.com, the planned sequel, titled "Camp Blood: The Death of Jason Voorhees," would have started with a winter-set opening scene confirming the deaths of Whitney and Clay.

"In the opening scene, Crystal Lake is frozen solid," Swift said. "Two naughty teens go out onto the frozen ice to play hockey. The puck slides ... and stops right on top of what appears to be a dead girl under the ice. It's Whitney from our last chapter." Additionally, the writers confirmed that Clay didn't survive the events of the "Friday the 13th" movie either.

The "Friday the 13th" reboot may have received a critical battering, but the numbers turned out to be sweet music to the ears of the studio executives. The film cost $17 million to produce, but it raked in over $92 million at the global box office, making it the highest-grossing film in the franchise, excluding the "Freddy vs. Jason" crossover movie. With that kind of profit margin, a sequel was not only expected but also illogical to ignore.

As Damian Shannon and Mark Swift confirmed to ComicBook.com, they were involved in continuing the story. "Yes, we wrote a sequel for 'Friday the 13th,'" Swift said. "And we sold it. It was going to be made but, ultimately, Jason has gotten into rights issues."

So, what happened? According to The Hollywood Reporter, Warner Bros. gave up the rights to "Friday the 13th" to Paramount Pictures in order to secure international distribution rights for Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar." Then, this turned into another legal matter entirely when the original writer of the 1980 film, Victor Miller, and the director, Sean S. Cunningham, entered into a dispute over who owns the rights to the franchise and characters. Let's just say this was a bloodbath behind the scenes that would have made Pamela Voorhees beam with joy, but the biggest casualty was Shannon and Swift's "Camp Blood: The Death of Jason Voorhees," a horror movie sequel that was never made.