After years of waiting, Friday the 13th fans are finally getting what they’ve been clamoring for: a new installment in the long-running horror franchise. Throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, you couldn’t go more than a couple of years without a new Friday the 13th sequel hitting cinemas. Sean S. Cunningham’s original film was released in 1980, and a sequel was then released each and every year after for several years straight. And yet, in the modern day, Jason Voorhees’ iconic hacking-and-slashing routine has seen far less play.
The last Friday the 13th film to release was the Platinum Dunes-produced remake in 2009, seventeen years ago. Since then, due to creative differences and legal difficulties, the franchise has effectively been on ice. This is, by far, the longest period of time that has gone between Friday installments since the dawn of the franchise. But fortunately, that drought is preparing to come to an end, not with a movie, but with the release of Crystal Lake, an eight-episode streaming prequel series coming to Peacock this October. Which brings me to my real point here: Peacock, I implore you, please rethink your current plan to release all eight of these episodes at once.
The present-tense plan for Crystal Lake is for Peacock to unleash all eight episodes of the series simultaneously, binge-releasing them all on October 15. This is a stupid plan that will actively harm the release of this long-awaited return for the franchise, but fortunately, there’s still time to change course. In years past, altering the release plan of a television show came with all kinds of complications.
Networks would plan out their schedules months in advance, with programming blocks, commercial breaks, and all. But in the streaming era, everything has become liberated from these constraints to a truly insane degree. Streaming platforms like Peacock can do whatever they want, which is why Peacock should absolutely alter their plans and switch Crystal Lake to a weekly release format.
Why the binge-release model? In the early days of streaming platforms, binge release was the norm, originated by Netflix and meant to serve as a counterpoint to the weekly release model of regular television. This attracted attention early on but has come to harm Netflix and other streamers in the years that have followed. Netflix is infamously struggling with ‘second season problems’ as of late, in which viewership for returning series sees a steep decline, due in large part to the binge-release model. If viewers feel compelled to shotgun a show as quickly as possible, it is going to fade from memory that much faster and not become something that they eagerly anticipate more of.
In the modern oversaturated entertainment landscape, binge-released shows seem to come and go in the blink of an eye. The sheer act of releasing all the episodes of a series at once puts up obstacles for viewers now, rather than empowering them. Seeing that every episode of a show is out and that you’ll have to race to finish it to engage in the discourse about it doesn’t inspire people to watch the show; it actively pushes them away from it, turning viewership into a morbid chore rather than an active delight.
Given just how long fans have waited for a new Friday the 13th installment and how hot horror as a genre is right now with general audiences at large, there is immense potential for Crystal Lake to become a runaway hit for Peacock if the platform plays its cards right. But binge-releasing all eight episodes of the series in one foul swoop is not playing your cards right; it is actively sabotaging the show.
If Crystal Lake is good, releasing episodes weekly allows it to build momentum across a several-week run. Not only does this benefit the show, but it also benefits Peacock as a brand, keeping people subscribed to the platform that much longer, so it’s a pretty obvious win-win. For proof of how this works, you need look no further than Crystal Lake showrunner Brad Caleb Kane’s other streaming horror franchise spin-off, It: Welcome to Derry, which premiered weekly on HBO Max and ended its run with higher viewership than when it started.
All of this to say, please don’t do this, Peacock. Releasing Crystal Lake all at once like this is going to hamper the creative and financial potential of the show, and it’s a stupid move anchored in outdated methodologies. There’s still time to switch to a weekly release pattern, which would benefit all parties involved enormously.
So do that. Thanks.
Add us as a preferred source on Google