As all of us Friday the 13th and Jason Voorhees fans are all too aware of at this point in time, there is an agonizing, seemingly endless Friday the 13th legal battle going on behind the scenes of the series between original Friday the 13th director Sean S. Cunningham and original Friday the 13th screenwriter Victor Miller over just who owns the rights to not only the franchise, but the character of Jason.

Today we're hearing from actor turned entertainment copyright lawyer Larry Zerner, who played chubby little Shelly, aka the kid that provides Jason Voorhees with his hockey mask in director Steve Miner's Friday the 13: Part 3-D, that there will probably and finally be a decision made in the long-running case by June 2020. Specifically, Lerner tweets out some hope.

Now as good as it is to hear that this whole Friday the 13th legal battle may very well be reaching an end in summer 2020, I have to be a bit of a realist here and crash the party somewhat. What I mean is that, even if all this legal stuff is over and done with by the middle of next year, we still have to wait for the powers that be behind the scenes to not only decide where the Friday the 13th franchise is going to go from here on out (meaning another film or a TV series) but we will then have to wait for whatever they end up choosing to pursue to be, you know, produced. This, unfortunately, means it could still be another two years AFTER this summer's final decision at best before we see the Friday the 13th franchise and it's mascot Jason Voorhees back on the screen. Bummer, right?

But all is not lost for us Friday the 13th Jason fans out there as of late. After all the online fan community has been picking up the slack left in Cunningham and Miller's wake by providing us with a seemingly endless series of killer fan films based on the long-running classic franchise. The top amongst them, in my opinion being director Vincente DiSanti's Never Hike Alone starring Drew Leighty and Vincente DiSanti as Jason Voorhees.

The killer short film centers on a hiker whose survival skills are put to the test when he stumbles upon the remains of an old abandoned camp and discovers its long dark secrets - and, of course, Jason. Here's hoping that as we wait out these next few years, the online Friday the 13th community keeps the killer short fan films coming! In the meantime, this update regarding the ongoing Friday the 13th legal battle between director Sean S. Cunningham and screenwriter Victor Miller comes to us from actor turned entertainment copyright lawyer Larry Zerner over on Twitter.