As it turns out, Michael Myers is extremely hard to kill. So despite Laurie Strode’s best-laid plans, the Shape will return to do battle with her once again in not one, but two sequel films to last year’s Halloween. The first of those sequels is next year’s Halloween Kills and although that film was just announced last month, it is set to start filming very soon, as co-writer Danny McBride explained:
Halloween 2 starts filming in like three weeks. That’s already off to the races. The script is almost finished for the third one. Hopefully that’ll go at the same time next year.
They’re really not wasting any time are they? The sequel to last year’s Halloween will go before cameras not long after it was officially announced. In less than a month, Halloween Kills will begin filming and while it seemed like it took a while to get confirmation that Halloween was getting a sequel in the first place, once that confirmation came, things were ‘off to the races,’ just as Danny McBride said.
Clearly a lot of the pieces for Halloween Kills must have already been in place prior to the official announcement. That includes the script for the sequel, written by Danny McBride, director David Gordon Green and Scott Teems, which was obviously good to go. We've heard from director David Gordon Green that there was always a plan to do more Halloween movies, so that makes sense.
That was one of the cool things about the announcement to begin with. We heard rumors that Halloween was getting a sequel or sequels, but we didn’t know for sure and as soon as we found out, the movies already had titles, directors, writers and release dates and in a few short weeks the first one will be filming.
So if Halloween Kills begins principal photography sometime in September, the filmmakers will have about a year’s time to work on it before next Halloween. And although Universal Pictures announced both Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends at the same time, these two sequels will not be shooting back to back.
As Danny McBride told Polygon, the script for Halloween Ends, which he is writing alongside David Gordon Green, Paul Brad Logan and Chris Bernier, is almost finished and the plan is to shoot that film in that same late summer/early fall time period next year.
This is highly encouraging for horror fans and fans of the Halloween franchise because it really seems like the creatives and the companies behind these films and this property have a plan in place and know what they are doing with this franchise. Sure there could be rewrites or reshoots, but at the current moment, the way Danny McBride portrays it, things are moving along swimmingly.
The plot to Halloween Kills is still a mystery but we know that it will continue the saga of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode. The film will once again star Jamie Lee Curtis and it is possible that Charles Cypher could also reprise his role as Sheriff Leigh Brackett from the original 1978 film.
Halloween Kills slashes into theaters on October 16, 2020. If you’re interested in seeing Danny McBride onscreen, you can check out his new series The Righteous Gemstones on HBO. For movies still to come this year, keep an eye on our premiere guide.
