Victor Miller, the screenwriter of Friday the 13th, has died. He was 86.
Variety reported Miller’s death after receiving confirmation from his son, Ian. Miller died on Monday, August 31. His cause of death has yet to be revealed.
“Yesterday my father, Victor Miller, went to his final reward,” Ian wrote in an Instagram post. “He was almost always the smartest, funniest person in whatever room he was in. He inspired in me, and many others, a love of photography, music, and storytelling. He is survived by his wife, two sons, and his grandson. He had a helluva run and will be missed dearly.”
Miller was only involved with the first Friday the 13th film, which was released in 1980. The series eventually spawned 12 movies (with many a how-to-watch-in-chronological-order articles online), two TV series, numerous novels and comic books, and several video games, but the New Orleans-born writer famously wasn’t too hot on the film becoming a franchise. In a 2015 Vice interview, Miller said he would’ve preferred if the franchise didn’t make Jason its stalwart killer.
“Only because it completely destroys the motivation for Mrs. Voorhees! Which was the only thing I had going for me in that movie, which was that she was avenging her son and then it turns out that he isn’t dead anyway,” Miller told Vice.
The franchise was the subject of a legal tug-of-war starting in 2016, when Miller filed a notice to reclaim the rights to the Friday the 13th screenplay from production company Horror Inc. In December 2021, a judge ruled in favor of Miller, determining that the screenplay wasn’t a work made for hire—meaning Miller had the rights to the screenplay, and directors (and other interested parties) could use Jason Voorhees as a character with Miller’s express permission.
In 2024, Horror Inc. launched a Jason Universe initiative, with plans for new games, merch, and TV shows, including Peacock and A24’s upcoming prequel series, Crystal Lake. Horror Inc.’s “new Friday the 13th activations” also included plans to work with Miller on new projects.
Following the release of Friday the 13th, Miller transitioned to writing soap operas like All My Children. He eventually returned to writing horror, working with director Tom Holland on the 2017 mystery thriller Rock, Paper, Scissors. However, if he were given the chance to write the second Friday the 13th film, Miller told Vice he would’ve jumped at the opportunity.
“Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. But they told me I was too expensive to write the sequel because sequels have to be made cheaper than the previous one,” he said. “And I went, ‘Oh. OK.’ What did I know? I’d never written a hit movie before.”
At the end of Ian’s obituary for his father, he announced that Victor’s celebration of life would take place in November, “on Friday the 13th, of course.”
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