10 Unnecessary Horror Movie Details You NEED To Know
6. Friday The 13th - Jason Was Originally Named “Josh”
This may not seem like a point worth noting at first glance, and wouldn't you know it, you're right! It just wasn't possible to leave this one on the drawing board though, even if Paramount refrained from extracting it from theirs! How much more comedic would the Friday the 13th series had been if people were being butchered, brutalised and bludgeoned by a big fella named Josh?
This was thrown out just before filming began and after Victor Miller revised his script multiple times. He could've been called Dave, Phil or big bad Bill, but in the end, it seems like Jason just had that more fearful ayre to it and Miller thought so too, settling on Voorhees from the outset and sticking with it, but deeming the name Josh to be a little too innocent.
Rightfully so too, as it's hard to deny that the character possibly wouldn't have outlasted his franchise and become a pop-culture sensation if he had a less lucrative name such as the one he was eventually given, and Josh would've put the nail in his coffin way before the fourth entry tried to.
If there's one positive thing you can say though, it's that it opens up so many hilarious possibilities.
Imagine if the hero was called Drake. Imagine if this actually came to fruition in 1980. It probably wouldn't be too inaccurate to assume that the internet would have had some fun creating theories that Josh was sacked from the cinema and turned to a life of sacrificing bystanders to make up for it. Likely starting with Brenda.