was initially conceived by writer Bruce Hidemi Sakow, who came in early during the film's pre-production. According to him, "The major contribution I made to the script was with the Tommy Jarvis character and the relationship he had with his mother and sister and Jason. It was my idea to have this little kid kill off Jason, because we've seen Jason kill of loads of young adults so who else but a kid?" Originally, Joseph Zito planned for Tommy to become the antagonist and "new Jason" in any subsequent Friday the 13th films created after the fourth. The ending of Friday the 13th: A New Beginning leads up to this, although due to the negative reaction to that film, the idea was dropped. According to Zito, the possibility of Tommy going the route of becoming "the new Jason" was his idea, as a type of insurance policy for a possible continuation of the film series, saying: "It was my fault. No one at Paramount had any interest in making more films and Frank Mancuso, Sr. told me as much during the difficult editing process. Basically, they were kind of embarrassed by the films even though they were very profitable. It was my idea to film the ending with Tommy because I wanted to leave the door slightly open just in case. I never imagined that there would be so many sequels made after that though. None of us had any idea." Adam Marcus, director of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, has revealed that he had originally intended for the film's male protagonist Steven Freeman to be Tommy Jarvis, but could not include him because New Line Cinema did not own the rights to Tommy's character at that time and so was forced to write a new character and name for the film. Tommy Jarvis was referenced in the script for Freddy vs Jason, the dialogue insinuating that he is running a petition to have the reopening of Camp Crystal Lake annulled. He is called a "lunatic" by an executive at the building site at the camp, but this dialogue ultimately never made it into the theatrical film. The producers of the 2009 Friday the 13th reboot considered using the Tommy character, but decided not to because they wanted to create their own mythology. Casting Casting director Fern Champion says on the Crystal Lake Memories documentary that she felt