David Gordon Green, Danny McBride Talk Halloween Sequels, Confirm Filming Will Begin This September
Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends will soon officially begin production.
By Chris Morse
In a new interview, Halloween’s very own co-writers David Gordon Green and Danny McBride opened up about the two upcoming sequels and confirmed that back-to-back filming will begin this September, which is consistent with earlier reports that shooting could begin this fall. Speaking to Collider, Green started things off by confirming the schedule for bringing Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends to life.
“We start in September [and shoot them back-to-back] with a breather between,” he commented. “But they’ll be out in two consecutive years, in 2020 and 2021. You get a breather this year, and then, for the next two years, it’s gonna be crazy.”
According to McBride, the overall story of this trilogy dates back to when the team was originally developing the 2018 sequel. They had lofty plans then, but felt it was best to get one movie out there before getting too far ahead of themselves.
“That was our plan,” he confirmed. “Relaunching it for just one, we wanted it to have a bigger story. We were originally going to even shoot them back to back, but as soon as we got it up and running, we took a look at ourselves and were like, ‘You know what? We should make sure we can do one of them good, before we bite off trying to do three of them.’ So, we just put all of our efforts into trying to make the first one land. There was talk, right away, of us doing more of these. We just needed to get everybody aligned and see if everybody was down with the vision. Luckily, everyone is.”
“We had ambitions of doing two, with some big ideas,” added Green. “And then [we] decided that we should see if anybody liked one at a time, and if they liked the other one, then maybe we’d build on it. And then, when that was successful, our additional ideas that weren’t integrated into that first one developed into two. We’ve written them, and we’re ready to go.”
With respect to these sequels, McBride revealed that they have no plans to reinvent the wheel. These two films will serve as continuations and move forward from the events of the 2018 film, without changing too much about what makes this franchise work. Regarding whether or not Halloween Ends is truly the end, Green thinks Michael Myers is simply too iconic to make such a proclamation.
“I think, ultimately, Michael Myers is such an iconic character that no one besides Carpenter is ever gonna have ownership over him,” he said. “This will be our chance at the table to play with these characters, and I’m sure that, when we’re done, other people will come in and do the same thing, or have their own reinvention. Michael Myers is iconic enough to allow that, too. He’s like James Bond, where you can have different actors and different filmmakers. He represents something so simple and scary that he can be translated by lots of different people.”
Does that mean we could see more Halloween films once this trilogy has concluded? “They’re never done telling the Frankenstein story, and at this point, Michael Myers is a classic movie monster,” he added. “But our Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode/Michael Myers saga will be done. The fun of it is also seeing it end and knowing that it can. If you just keep trying to elongate it and milk it for all of the money, then that’s boring.”
Regardless of what the future holds for Michael Myers and the Halloween legacy, it would appear that this particular team is happy to conclude their story with two more films before moving on to other things. In this Hollywood cycle of endless reboots, it’s only a matter of time when there will be another film in the franchise and the only question is what a new story might entail, but you can expect this sequel trilogy to wrap up with its clear vision fulfilled.
Halloween Kills will hit theaters on October 16th, 2020 while Halloween Ends is coming on October 15th, 2021. Be sure to follow Dead Entertainment for all the latest news and updates.
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