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Halloween Kills Producer Unsure of Franchise’s Future After Current Trilogy
Halloween Kills producer Ryan Freimann is unsure if the franchise will continue once the current trilogy ends with 2022's Halloween Ends. With 2018's Halloween, the 42-year-old franchise saw renewed critical and commercial success. This was mainly due to the franchise bringing back original star Jamie Lee Curtis, reprising her role as final girl Laurie Strode. By jettisoning the canon of the franchise and making a direct sequel to the original film, new life was breathed into the Halloween name.
Halloween Kills is currently awaiting release and won't face any more delays, according to Jason Blum. Originally slated to hit theaters this year, the film was pushed back due to the coronavirus. This caused Halloween Ends to also be pushed back into 2022. The sequel will bring back Jamie Lee Curtis, as well as other familiar faces from the original 1978 film. Halloween Kills will continue to pay homage to John Carpenter's original film by bringing back characters like Lindsey Wallace and Tommy Doyle, but the future of the franchise is a lot less certain.
Friemann shared his thoughts about the future of the franchise with ComicBook, discussing the various iterations of the franchise, including Rob Zombie's two films and David Gordon Green's trilogy. Freimann hasn't thought much past the current trilogy with Green, which makes sense considering that the current films have more of a timely resonance to them than the ones before. Freimann alludes to the possibility of more Halloween films but insists that he's not focused on that right now:
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"I have not thought that far ahead. Right now, we're in the midst of what we see as the [director] David Gordon Green trilogy. And the story, like with the Rob Zombie films, it had these little offshoots. They had done Halloween III: Season of the Witch way back then, so it's like we're living in the moment with these films that are successful, and we'll see where it goes from there. I hope there is a theatrical experience. The future is still in place, but for right now, yes. It just speaks to me and Malek [Akkad]."
The Halloween franchise has constantly reinvented itself. While some films have had direct sequels, like the Zombie films, many other Halloween films have taken place outside of the original narrative timeline. The current trilogy is itself a reinvention, ignoring the nine other movies that came before it. If the films continue to be profitable, Universal, Miramax, and Blumhouse will surely continue to make them. Despite Freimann's comments, it is all but guaranteed that the Halloween franchise will continue after Green's trilogy. Barring any devastating box office results or critical response, the franchise will likely produce future films.
If anything, the current trilogy has proven the franchise's flexibility and the studio's willingness to come up with new ways to bring back the character of Michael Myers. Even if Curtis no longer wishes to continue as Laurie Strode, the new trilogy has also brought on her daughter (Judy Greer) and granddaughter (Andi Matichak), giving writers more than enough final girls to provide for more films. With two years to go before Halloween Ends bows, completing the trilogy, there is plenty of time for writers to come up with new and exciting ideas. In the meantime, fans will have to wait until October 2021 to see Halloween Kills and find out how Michael Myers will be brought back from the dead this time.
