the “Friday the 13th” series, yet the MCU drew inspiration from the legendary slasher series. Marvel incorporated horror aspects into the MCU much later with titles such as “WandaVision” and “Werewolf by Night,” but Marvel President Kevin Feige identified elements in the “Friday the 13th” series that he aimed to mirror for “Iron Man 3,” and, consequently, the whole MCU.
What did Feige recognize? “Friday the 13th” managed to reinvent itself mid-narrative, keeping audiences engaged with surprising character arcs. In a 2018 conversation with Rotten Tomatoes, Feige elaborated on how his strategy for crafting the third installments of superhero trilogies, like “Iron Man 3,” was shaped by “Friday the 13th.”
“It could be quite easy by the third installment to fall into a pattern of being overly familiar or too alike or merely more of the same. I reflected on my favorite film franchises, and the ones I cherish the most are those that introduced fresh ideas in part three,” Feige stated at that time. “These were also often the ones that would continue to four, five, six, seven, eight. [Consider] the ‘Friday the 13th’ films. Jason Voorhees didn’t don the hockey mask until ‘Friday the 13th Part III,’ [yet] one thing comes to mind when you think of ‘Friday the 13th’ — Jason Voorhees with the hockey mask.”