A few months ago, the latest installment of the Halloween franchise took a huge step forward. In addition to Blumhouse Productions announcing that they would be running the show from now on, it was also revealed that the legendary John Carpenter will be an executive producer in addition to a creative consultant and the score's composer. It very much looked like the wheels were in motion... but now we have learned that the developing project is still very much in its earliest stages.
With his new movie Ouija: Origin of Evil set to arrive in theaters later this month, I had the pleasure of hopping on the phone with Blumhouse Founder/CEO Jason Blum earlier this afternoon -- and after a long discussion about the Ouija sequel, I asked him about one of his studio's most high-profile upcoming projects. I asked about the development of Halloween and its relationship to the larger franchise continuity -- but the executive/producer explained that the project isn't at a point in the process yet where those decisions have actually been made. Said Blum,
We haven't landed on an approach. We haven't landed on a filmmaker, and we haven't landed on an approach. We thought we had a filmmaker and an approach, and we don't. We're talking to a handful of people about it -- all of them have different ideas. I don't believe in coming up with an idea and telling a filmmaker what to do. So we have three to five different people we're talking with, and all of them have a different idea about what it should be. And we haven't landed on a group, and as a result we haven't landed on an idea.
Jason Blum was clearly being very cautious, and, for obvious reasons, not naming any specific names -- but his comment about no longer having a filmmaker and an approach locked in is an interesting one. Without any identifying clues, we can't say for certain who Blumhouse was originally looking at for the Halloween gig... but we do have a guess:
That is a Tweet from director Adam Wingard, and while it alone doesn't mean anything, what is significant is the fact that A) he posted it the same day as the Blumhouse/Carpenter announcement, and B) it is one of a string of Tweets he posted about Halloween and/or Jason Blum that day. It's entirely possible that this bit of social media activity was simply an expression of his fanhood for the series, or meant to spin the heads of some of his fans (particularly those who enjoyed the Carpenter-inspired The Guest) -- but it was also readable as the director hinting about an upcoming project.
What also exists is a good reason why Adam Wingard's possible relationship with the next Halloween movie may have changed recently. After all, it was just a few weeks ago that we got to see the release of the filmmaker's first whack at franchise filmmaking with Blair Witch... and that didn't exactly go spectacularly. It's just speculation, but one could see how those events might convince a director to steer more towards original creations.
Regardless of the details of how we got to this point, the unfortunate news at the end of it all is that we are going to have to wait a while longer for the first Halloween movie that John Carpenter has been involved with since 1982's Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Of course, we ultimately hope that this longer development process winds up working in the production's favor, as there is truly no need to rush it along.
We'll keep you updated with the latest news about Halloween as it comes rolling in -- but for now get ready for a new big screen horror fix when Mike Flanagan's Ouija: Origin Of Evil rolls into theaters on October 21st, and stay tuned for more from my interview with Jason Blum!
