Stephen King reveals 'best novel idea [he] never wrote' was Friday the 13th from Jason's perspective

Stephen King has given us plenty of original horror characters like Pennywise and Randall Flagg, but maybe it's time to let the literary master of terror tackle an icon he didn't create. Posting on Twitter, King admitted that he has an idea for a novel told from the perspective of Friday the 13th's hockey mask-wearing, machete-wielding antagonist: Jason Voorhees.

"The best novel idea I never wrote (and probably never will) is I Jason, the first-person narrative of Jason Voohees, and his hellish fate: killed over and over again at Camp Crystal Lake. What a hellish, existential fate!" wrote the author, later adding, "Just thinking about the legal thicket one would have to go through to get permissions makes my head ache. And my heart, that too. But gosh, shouldn't someone tell Jason's side of the story?"

To think that an influential writer like King would have any trouble receiving permission to play around in the Friday the 13th franchise is laughable. He probably just has to say the word to his agent(s) and the rights will be squared away before you can say, "Come float with us, Georgie." And if anyone could humanize Jason (if you think about it, the character has a pretty tragic backstory anyway), it's the guy who made us care about the fate of a Nazi war criminal in Apt Pupil.

Even if King never gets to explore the man behind the famous hockey mask in word form, he does think it'd make one hell of a motion picture. "Blumhouse could do it as a movie," he noted.

Naturally, the writer's slasher-inspired posts attracted a good deal of attention — not just from fans, but from other authors and celebrities, too.

"I used to spend hours in my university days getting drunk and trying to rewrite The Raven from the point of view of the bird," Hayseed Dixie frontman John Wheeler wrote in response.

"Never cared for Jason, but it is an interesting idea," added Bubba Ho-Tep's Joe R. Lansdale.

Comedian Patton Oswalt offered up his own writing services for a sort of printed double feature, saying: "Aaaaaaaand... I want this novel right now. Let's do one of those Ace paperback 'doubles.' My half will be either Leatherface How to Make an American Quilt or Michael Myers: Babysitters Clubbed."

Ted Geoghegan, writer and director of 2015's We Are Still Here, pointed out that Jason only really dies once throughout the onscreen series.

"Curious, as it's always overlooked," he wrote in response to King's initial tweet. "Are you factoring in that Jason only dies once (he's a living, breathing human until the end of The Final Chapter), and is then a zombie for the remaining titles?"

The filmmaker eventually chimed in with: "My suggestion? Hire me to write it correctly."