Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash #1

Newsarama promoted Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash #1 this week, with a recap of their interview with (treatment writer) Jeff Katz. Check out the article for a sneak peak at the first issue, and find out what happens to Will and Lori from Freddy vs. Jason.

Wildstorm and Dynamite Entertainment have provided Newsarama with a preview of this week’s Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash #1 – the meeting of the three horror icons. Back in August we brought you the first word of the crossover, and talked to the writer originally behind the story, Jeff Katz, for whom the story began life as a movie pitch.

Part of the conversation went like this:

Newsarama: Jeff, let’s start at the start – this wasn’t a blind pitch at first was it? This was going to be a movie when you started on it, right?

Jeff Katz: Exactly. What you’re going to be getting in this miniseries, barring whatever creative choices the writer makes in terms of adapting is what New Line was planning on Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash to be. That was always the plan.

NRAMA: And how did you get involved with it all?

JK: When I started as an intern at New Line, my two goals were to work on Freddy vs. Jason and to bring Evil Dead back. Sam Raimi and Bruce and all of those guys went to the same high school that I did in Detroit, and Sam’s family were my next door neighbors growing up, so there was just that connection that I had to the property. It all made a lot of sense. So even before Freddy vs. Jason coming out, I was in their ears talking that if they did a sequel, they had to get Ash involved.

Frankly, it was a bit of a pipe dream. The movie came out, performed really well, and they started talking about a sequel, and from the get-go, we were all saying, “It’s Ash time.” I did about a thirty page treatment for the potential sequel, turned it in, and they all backed it. Negotiations were started – I met with Bruce and Rob Tappert [Evil Dead Producer] and we came close to a deal two or three times.

NRAMA: So what happened?

JK: The everyday realities of deal-making in Hollywood, sadly. It just never got done. Had those deals all closed, this was going to be the movie. After some time passed and the Ash thing had gone away, we kind of all knew it couldn’t happen, and by that time, the treatment had made its way to the internet, so the idea of this movie was out there, really, being supported by the fans for years.

Somewhere in all of that, the New Line licensing guys started talking about doing it as a comic book. So it had been bandied about for a couple of years while I was at New Line, and I was trying to encourage it along as best I could, knowing that was the only way it was going to see the light of day. I’m a fanboy for these franchises, so I wanted to see it produced in some form or another as much as anybody, and lo and behold, here it is.

“Here” being a six-issue miniseries written by James Kuhoric, with art by Jason Craig and covers by J. Scott Campbell.

Click the thumbnails for larger versions.