New Halloween Movie Ignores All of the Franchise's Sequels

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Why the New Halloween Movie Ignores All of the Sequels

By Sam Stone

Published Jun 8, 2018

The writers of Blumhouse Productions' Halloween revival explain why the ignored everything in the franchise except the 1978 original.

One of the more intriguing plot points of the upcoming Halloween revival is that it ignores all but the 1978 original, removing all the subsequent sequels from canon.

"We were trying to come up with what our take would be and really just found an original path that more or less takes the first one as our reality," director and co-writer David Gordon Green explained to ComingSoon. "[That film] kind of sets the tone for our story or history and then we jumped 40 years into the future and we see how the world today responds to, was affected by, how we meet our characters in a different phase of their life under the reality of this traumatic event and have to come to terms with some of these issues."

Released earlier today, the first trailer for the new Halloween confirms that on the night of his infamous 1978 rampage, Myers was apprehended and locked away for 40 years. It also confirms Myers and Laurie Strode are no longer family, a plot point introduced in 1981's Halloween II.

"I was pushing for that removal right off the bat," confirmed co-writer Danny McBride. "I just felt like that was an area where he wasn’t quite as scary anymore, it seemed too personalized. I wasn’t as afraid of Michael Myers anymore because I’m not his fucking brother, so he’s not coming after me. Also you’ve seen it, so wouldn’t it be interesting just to see what would happen if it wasn’t that, and what does that open up for us if it wasn’t this random killing that has affected this character, so it just seemed like new territory."

Despite removing the sequels from canon, the upcoming horror film will have nods to the entire history of the franchise.

"Anyone who’s a fan of any of these films will find nice little Easter Eggs acknowledging our salute to the filmmakers that have preceded us in the stories and mythologies as they’ve unfolded," revealed Green.

Debuting on October 19, the latest Halloween is directed by David Gordon Green from a script written with Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley. It stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, and Andi Matichak with Nick Castle and James Jude Courtney sharing the role of masked killer Michael Myers. The film is executive produced and scored by original filmmaker John Carpenter.