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John Carpenter Returns To ‘Halloween’ Film Franchise [Video]

By Nick Younker
Published on: 06:41 PST, May 24, 2016

John Carpenter is the man who brought Halloween and Michael Myers to the big screen way back in 1978. Now, almost 40 years later, the king of Halloween is about to return to the franchise for the 10th sequel installment that will bring fans some of the biggest thrills and chills since Jimmy Carter was President.

For those millennials who do not know who John Carpenter is, he is the man who has brought such huge scary, sci-fi, and action movies to the big screen that he is hailed by many to be one of the biggest horror movie directors in film history, alongside the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, Wes Craven, and the many incarnations of Hammer horror film directors.

For this reboot/sequel film that has been getting teased now for quite some time, the next Halloween will have the ultimate creative mind behind the horror of the franchise that once reigned supreme every October, every year since 1978, according to Deadline.

What is even more exciting is that the aging director is entering the project with loads of enthusiasm, meaning that John Carpenter has every intention of returning the Halloween franchise back to its original glory.

Carpenter released a statement on this new project that he has signed on to with producers Malek Akkad and Jason Blum, both of whom will be producing for their respective production companies, Trancas International Films and Blumhouse Productions.

“Thirty-eight years after the original Halloween, I’m going to help to try to make the 10th sequel the scariest of them all,” Carpenter’s statement said.

Make no mistake, John Carpenter is more than just the Halloween franchise. He is the one who brought fans back to The Thing in the ’80s, as well as The Fog, They Live, John Carpenter’s Vampires, Prince of Darkness, Christine, and Ghosts of Mars. On the science fiction side of film, Carpenter was responsible for Starman, Escape from New York, Big Trouble in Little China, and the action thriller Assault on Precinct 13.

But it is safe to assume that Halloween is perhaps John Carpenter’s biggest franchise achievement, spawning nine sequels, which include the remake films by Rob Zombie.

Some of the Halloween sequels were actually a little bit of a stretch to have been considered a sequel. First of all, the Halloween franchise seemed to reinvent itself when they released Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. Although they did include a photo of Jamie Lee Curtis in the film posing as Laurie Strode, they made it appear as though she had died and her daughter was in the care of a foster family.

That daughter was Jamie Lloyd, who was now that last relative of Michael Myers still living. Jamie also appeared in Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.

But in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, the franchise went back to the Jamie Lee Curtis character of Laurie Strode. She had been in hiding and had a teenage son. That, in effect, canceled out Jamie Lloyd as ever having existed in the original canon of the Halloween franchise and subsequently makes the fourth and fifth films an alternate universe for the franchise. Halloween: H20 also did not use the “Part 7” moniker on the film, which means they were not using the previous films as part of the storyline continuity.

It is unclear at this time exactly what kind of Halloween film Carpenter intends to make. He could use the first two films as his continuity, or he could even pick up the Rob Zombie remakes as part of the project and, in effect, reimagine the whole Halloween franchise with that.

There has been no word yet as to when the film will be released, but there is a good chance that they will be expediting the production process to push it out for the Halloween holiday. The only real big news at this point is that John Carpenter has signed on to the project.

[Image via Miramax]

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