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But, of the 12 theatrical films, some have undoubtedly performed far better than others. Without further ado, the Friday the 13th movies, ranked by adjusted box office gross.
12) Jason X — $23.8 Million
When eight years pass between installments of a well-known IP, you’d imagine that there would be some built-up anticipation. But it’s hard to imagine that even half of Friday the 13th‘s biggest fans showed up for Jason X.
Even with a budget of $11 million in 2001 dollars, the space-set slasher lost money. It only netted $13.1 million domestically at the time, with a paltry $3.8 million from overseas markets. It didn’t even have particularly steep competition, opening opposite only the Angelina Jolie-led rom-com Life or Something Like It. It beat that movie (barely) but came in third after the sophomore weekend of The Scorpion King the third weekend of Changing Lanes.
11) Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday — $35.4 Million
Even with a wildly different new core concept and a four-year gap between Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday and the previous installment, it was clear that audience interest in Friday the 13th hadn’t rebounded, it had continued to decrease. Were it not for Jason X, the failure of Jason Goes to Hell would be the prime example of audience interest in Jason Voorhees flatlining.
Jason Goes to Hell was the first of three Friday the 13th movies under New Line Cinema, after 10 years and eight movies at Paramount Pictures. It a phase where New Line, the so-called “House That Freddy Built,” was trying to expand their roster of slasher icons. The Final Friday quintupled its $3 million budget, but without a doubt New Line was expecting more from it.
10) Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan — $37.1 Million
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, was considered one of the biggest disappointments of 1989’s summer movie season. It hit theaters with a big promise of a title and a particularly memorable marketing campaign, so it’s understandable why it was seen as such a letdown.
Part of the problem was that it didn’t deliver on the big promise of its title, at least not until the final third of the movie. It wasn’t “New York has a new problem” so much as “a boat en route to New York has a new problem.” On a budget of $5.5 million, its $14.3 million gross only turned a tiny profit. It was time to put Jason on ice for a bit.
9) Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood — $52 Million
By the latter half of the ’80s, audiences were tiring of the slasher subgenre. The exception was Freddy Krueger, who had reinvented it and only grown more popular since his first film. Take, for instance, 1988, when A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master made more than Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood and Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers combined.
Part of that came down to just how good A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors was and part of it came down to how fresh Freddy felt in comparison to the non-verbal antagonists of slashers past. This left Jason and Michael in the lurch. After all, if the promised return of Michael wasn’t enough to generate audience interest and the promise of what amounts to Carrie White vs. Jason Voorhees wasn’t enough, then the only conclusion that can be drawn is that people were tired of seeing teens get knocked off by a silent wrecking ball, even if there was a gimmick bolstering things. Even still, The New Blood netted nearly seven times its production budget, so there was reason enough to send him to Manhattan.
8) Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives — $57 Million
If a poor film comes out and a lot of people see it, it’s practically guaranteed the next entry of the franchise will come out to decreased attendance, even if the next film is infinitely superior to the one that preceded it. This is what happened with a film like Terminator: Dark Fate after Terminator Genisys and it’s what happened to Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives after Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning.
Even with positive reviews (for the franchise) in its corner, Jason Lives didn’t make much of a dent at the box office. Sure, its $19.5 million haul against $3 million made it profitable, but it simultaneously confirmed the IP was losing its financial viability post-The Final Chapter.
7) Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning — $65.4 Million
Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning came just eleven months after Paramount supposedly killed Jason off for good in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. It was the shortest turnaround between installments at the time and still holds that record.
Put simply, it was too quick a turnaround for the film not to experience a significant drop from its predecessor. Even still, especially when factoring in the horrendous reception from fans, it did quite well, earning just shy of 10 times its price tag.
6) Friday the 13th Part 2 — $76.7 Million
Friday the 13th Part 2 outgrossed Wolfen, Scanners, The Howling, and Omen III: The Final Conflict, but it was still a financial disappointment at the time. Halloween II, released later in 1981, did a little better, as did An American Werewolf in London.
But, at the end of the day, it was still the second-highest grossing slasher of the year and netted 17 times its budget. In other words, Friday the 13th Part 2 was really only a disappointment because it grossed about half what the original film did. But, viewed objectively, it was still a big-time moneymaker for Paramount.
