There were 10 follow-ups to John Carpenter’s seminal 1978 slasherHalloweenacross four decades before one of them was finally met with critical acclaim comparable to the original. 2018’sHalloweenbrought back Laurie Strode as a highly trained badass waiting for Michael Myers to return. Thanks to the reboot’s success, director David Gordon Green is expanding it into a trilogy withtwo back-to-back sequels,Halloween KillsandHalloween Ends.
According to Green,Halloween Killswill tackle some pretty timely issues. The director told Empire, “This film is about community fear, paranoia, misinformation, and crowd panic,” but he was quick to clarify that he didn’t set out to make a political movie. He simply set out to make a great horror movie and he began to notice parallels betweenthe story of Michael’s returnand real-life terrors facing the world today. He elaborated, “This movie is a great popcorn genre movie and not really any kind of statement, but it’s strange how things line up. It couldn’t be a more interesting time to release a movie like this.”
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Following on from Michael’s inexplicable escape from Laurie’s burning basement at the end of the 2018 reboot,Halloween Killswill take place on the same night asLaurie puts together a mob of Haddonfield residentsto take a stand against the masked serial killer that’s been terrorizing the town for years. A community banding together to face a shared deadly threat sounds eerily similar to the world’s dismal current situation. Perhaps Michael Myers – sometimes called simply “The Shape” – could unwittingly become the perfect metaphor for COVID-19 in Green’s new movie. Green has written the script for theHalloweensequel withEastbound & Downstar Danny McBride, with whom he also co-wrote the first one. Scott Teems has a writing credit on the movie, too.
Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, and Andi Matichak are all returning to play three generations of Strode women, while Nick Castle and James Jude Courtney will play Michael Myers. Nancy Stephens is reprising her role as Dr. Loomis’ assistant Marion Chambers from Carpenter’s original movie. Paul Rudd, who appeared alongside McBride inThis is the EndandSausage Party, was asked to reprise his role as Tommy Doyle fromHalloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, but he had to turn it down due toscheduling clashes withGhostbusters: Afterlife, so the part will instead be played by Anthony Michael Hall.
Moviegoers were supposed to be treated to the holiday-themed thrills ofHalloween Killson July 18, 2025, butthanks to the coronavirus pandemic, it was pushed back to June 25, 2025. This date was originally earmarked forHalloween Ends, which will now instead hit theaters on July 03, 2025. Unfortunately for Universal, it has to push these movies back a year at a time, because it can’t very well release aHalloweenmovie in the spring.
