Between the approval of John Carpenter and the mostly positive response from critics at the film’s Toronto premiere, things seem to be going pretty well so far for David Gordon Green’s new Halloween, and if its strong buzz can be translated into sufficient box office returns, then yet another outing from the murderous Michael Myers will surely be in the works.
Producer Jason Blum recently sat down with Forbes to discuss the upcoming slasher flick, and the topic of further installments in the series inevitably came up. While the Blumhouse Productions founder didn’t feel ready to give a definitive response, his answer suggests that it’s more likely than not that a sequel is on the way.
“I hope we do a sequel and we will do a sequel if the movie performs. We’re not going to decide if we do a sequel or not until we see the reaction to this movie. But I really hope to make it.”
With the film’s co-writer Danny McBride suggesting a couple of weeks ago that he too would be game for more Halloween films, it seems all but inevitable that we’ll be making at least one more trip to Haddonfield, Illinois after this year’s release.
Speaking of slasher sequels, Blum has also made it clear that he’s still willing to resurrect a couple more horror franchises, namely I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream, while stressing that nothing is confirmed at this point.
“I would like to do both of them, but it’s a rights situation with all those movies. It’s very tangled and very complicated. It’s one thing to say you want to do them and it’s a whole other thing to get to actually do it. To give you some idea, Halloween was in the works with us for four or five years before it evolved, so, there are business obstacles to cross but, in theory, if you said to me, “Would you like to do a Scream movie?” My answer would be, “Of course.” Sadly, it doesn’t work like that.”
So perhaps we shouldn’t be bracing ourselves for further news on either of those horror properties just yet, but it’s clear that Blumhouse’s sway in the world of genre cinema is at little risk of diminishing in these coming months, with Halloween coming out on October 19th, followed by Split sequel Glass on January 18th.