Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday mask while digging in the dirt. Freddy Krueger's gloved hand bursts out of the dirt and pulls Jason's mask into the ground. John D. LeMay is one of only two actors from the TV series to appear in the film series; the other is John Shepherd, who played Tommy Jarvis in "". Producer Sean S. Cunningham originally conceived an action-horror film in which Jason Voorhees would battle Freddy Krueger of the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" series. Paramount Pictures, who had released the previous eight "Friday the 13th" films, negotiated with New Line Cinema over the rights to the series,
Jason Voorhees Tommy Jarvis as the main antagonist. Screenwriter Barney Cohen felt Jarvis would become a substitute for Jason, but the idea was never fully developed in "A New Beginning". Director and co-screenwriter Danny Steinmann disliked the idea of Jason not being the killer, but decided to use Tommy's fear of Jason as the primary story. This idea was immediately abandoned in "Jason Lives", when "A New Beginning" did not spark the "creative success" the studio was looking for. Executive producer Frank Mancuso Jr. wanted to bring Jason back, and he did not care how it was achieved. In yet another alteration