the Jason Voorhees character, but retained control of the Friday the 13th title. New Line placed Cunningham's idea for a Freddy-versus-Jason film on hold, prompting him to generate a different script to precede that plot line. Cunningham's original idea would later manifest as Freddy vs. Jason in 2003. The studio courted John McTiernan and Tobe Hooper to helm the film. Adam Marcus, who served as an apprentice for editor Susan E. Cunningham during post production for Friday the 13th Part 2, was brought in by Cunningham to direct the film under the notion that he must remove Jason's hockey mask. Cunningham has denied ever telling Marcus to "find a way to get rid of that f**king mask", however, Marcus rebukes Cunningham's claim and insists that he did not have that level of creative control. Cunningham had also demanded that the events of Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan be ignored. The filmmaker's initial pitch saw Elias Voorhees, Jason's brother, digging up his body at the beginning of the film, eating his heart, taking on his supernatural powers and embarking on a similar killing spree. Jay Huguely was hired to flesh out Marcus' ideas into a script. According to Marcus, he had originally written the character of Steven Freeman to be Tommy Jarvis from part 4-6, but New Line Cinema only owned the rights to Jason and not Tommy and so could not legally use that character at the time. Marcus also explains that New Line Cinema did not own the Friday the 13th title, explaining why the film titles after Jason Takes Manhattan did not include the franchise name up until the 2009 remake. Huguely's draft was reportedly "[...] a hodgepodge of a script" and "unintelligible". Cunningham hired Dean Lorey to scrap Huguely’s work and write a completely new script within four days, removing Elias Voorhees from the story as Lorey felt that Jason must be the central character. Lorey's initial idea for the film saw Jason caught in between a gang war in Los Angeles, but an impending production start immediately shot down the writer's pitch. Michael DeLuca of New Line disliked Lorey's rewrite but greenlit the film regardless. Lorey moved onto another project, prompting the studio to turn to Leslie Bohem, who provided a polish to the script over a weekend. Lewis Abernathy of House IV: The Repossession was enlisted for further rewrites for the opening