Throughout its 45-year existence, John Carpenter‘s involvement in the Halloween franchise has ebbed and flowed, much like the quality of the movies themselves.
Of course, the legendary filmmaker co-wrote, directed, and composed the score for the iconic original, before adding a producer’s credit to his resume for the sequel, as well as being the uncredited director of the reshoots. Season of the Witch marked the last time his name came up until David Gordon Green’s trilogy of legacy follow-ups, where he served as an executive producer and contributor to the soundtrack, but it doesn’t seem as though he’s been kept in the loop about Michael Myers’ latest impending resurrection.
Less than a year after Halloween Ends hit theaters, it was revealed Miramax had won a heated bidding war to secure the rights to the IP, which has been ominously threatened as the beginning of an entire shared universe. Suffice to say, the reactions were pretty much exactly what you’d expect, but during an appearance at New York Comic-Con (per ScreenRant), Carpenter made it sound like it was news to him.
“There is one? I don’t know about it yet. See if you can get me a job on it.”
He might be joking, but you’d be foolish to bet against the new rights-holders seeking his counsel, or even having him on board as a ceremonial executive producer. If that does happen, then not even having Carpenter’s name attached will be enough to convince the skeptics that Halloween needs to be reborn again as an interconnected mythology covering multiple mediums, simply because it doesn’t.