While plenty of fans are excited about Tommy Doyle returning to the iconic horror franchise for Halloween Kills, some are wondering why A-lister Paul Rudd won’t be reprising his role. The eventual superstar rose to prominence with his part in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers as the grown-up version of the young boy Laurie Strode babysat in the original Halloween. Since then, he’s gone on to become one of the most bankable actors in Hollywood. It would’ve been nice to see Rudd return to his roots then, but unfortunately, scheduling conflicts prevented him from making his way back to the legendary slasher series.
The actor had been approached by those in charge to play Doyle again, but his involvement in Jason Reitman’s upcoming film Ghostbusters 3 has him too booked to take part in the sequel. The Ghostbusters follow-up is currently filming in Calgary, while Halloween Kills is set to start shooting in a couple of weeks.
The role has instead gone to prominent ’80s star Anthony Michael Hall. The 51-year-old will be the fifth performer to portray the character, following the likes of Rudd, Skyler Gisondo in Rob Zombie’s 2007 reboot, Danny Ray in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and Brian Andrews in the original.
Since 2018’s Halloween served as a direct sequel to the original, every other performance besides Andrews’ portrayal in the first has been erased. This means that the filmmakers can decide to take any direction they want with the character. It’s currently unknown how big of a role he’ll have in this new movie, but it’s likely that he and Laurie will team up to try to take down the Shape once and for all.
Although it would’ve been nice to see Rudd return to the franchise, there’s no doubt that Hall will do an amazing job. Let’s just hope Doyle doesn’t fall victim to the masked murderer who’s returning to Haddonfield to finish the job he started decades ago.
Halloween Kills will creep into theaters on October 16th, 2020 with Halloween Ends premiering just one year later on October 15th.