Last year, Blumhouse’s Halloween reboot-quel from director David Gordon Green was a hit with critics and a record-breaker at the box office. Given that level of success and the fact that the horror genre is built for it, you would think that a Halloween sequel would be no-brainer, but it turns out that we shouldn’t get too excited just yet. Addressing the initial plan to shoot two Halloween movies at once, producer Jason Blum explained the hurdles to a potential sequel:
We had talked about it but right now we’re not shooting any Halloween movies right now because we don’t have deal rights to the sequels. But I certainly hope to make 10 more but I’ll start with one more.
I think many people probably assumed that a Halloween sequel was a foregone conclusion given that it made $253.7 million on a $10 million budget, but it turns out that the situation is a bit more complicated than that. The fan sentiment and financial incentive might be there, yet as Jason Blum told Moviefone, Blumhouse actually doesn’t have the rights to make sequels at the moment.
As it seems is often the case with big name properties, the legalities of rights issues must be sorted out before a film can make it to the big screen. In this case, Blumhouse was able to make Halloween, but desire alone won’t be enough to get a sequel made; it has to get the rights to make sequels first.
Fortunately, for fans that want to see more of what Blumhouse can do with this property, the desire to make more films is clearly there. Jason Blum is ambitiously hoping that they can make 10 more Halloween movies, thus basically doubling the Halloween films that have been made thus far. He’s clearly got big plans for Halloween, but at the moment, Jason Blum is just taking it one at a time and hoping to make a sequel to the 2018 film.
So while there is no guarantee that Blumhouse will make another Halloween sequel, Jason Blum is trying, and with the first film’s success, there is a lot of money to be made. I imagine a deal will get worked out sooner or later so that money doesn’t get left on the table.
It seems Blumhouse might be bullish about getting to make a sequel too. It was reported last week that Narcos: Mexico producer Scott Teems is in talks to write the Halloween sequel. Many of the people involved with the first film seem down to return should a sequel happen, so now it’s just a waiting game to see if it does.
As far as where a sequel could take the story, it's hard to say. Danny McBride, who was one of the writer's on the first film, has some ideas, but since he isn't writing the sequel as far as we know, it's unclear whether those ideas will be used. We also know that there are plans in place for Allyson's boyfriend Cameron, played by Dylan Arnold.
Blumhouse’s latest horror film is the sequel Happy Death Day 2U. Check out what we thought of the flick and head over to our release schedule to see all the biggest movies heading to theaters in 2019.
