Last year’s Halloween saw John Carpenter‘s first direct involvement in the franchise since he and Alan Howarth composed the score for Halloween III: Season of the Witch in 1982, as he served as a producer on the 2018 sequel and also crafted the score. The multi-faceted filmmaker has confirmed that, in addition to returning as a producer on Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends, he will indeed be composing the scores for the upcoming sequels. With the sequels having only been announced weeks ago, details about the projects have been kept to a minimum, leaving fans to speculate about whether Carpenter would be composing two new scores or merely producing.
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“I loved it, It was a lot of fun,” Carpenter shared with ComicBook.com when discussing his experience on last year’s sequel. “And I’ll do the score, do a new score. That’s always fun.”
Rather than speculating about if there was any doubt over crafting new scores or was just in talks, Carpenter confirmed, “I’m on board. Let’s go.”
Carpenter has composed the scores for a large number of his films, with his early efforts like Assault on Precinct 13 and Halloween being a financial decision born out of necessity, though the filmmaker has recorded three albums in recent years and taken them on world tours. While it’s been nearly a decade since Carpenter has directed a film, he is still keeping quite busy, focusing his efforts on other artistic endeavors.
Joining Carpenter for the sequels are writers David Gordon Green, who will also direct, and Danny McBride, in addition to producer Jason Blum and star Jamie Lee Curtis. Green and McBride have often discussed that their original plans for continuing the Michael Myers narrative was to do a trilogy, though they wanted to see if the first film was a success.
Thanks both in part to the success of the film and Carpenter’s enjoyable experience making it, the filmmaker noted that the process to move forward on these films was much simpler, seemingly allowing Green and McBride to move forward with the rest of the films in their planned trilogy.
“Everybody, after Halloween was a big hit, everybody said, ‘Oh, let’s do it again,’” Carpenter confessed. “So it was easy.”
When asked if the writers had to pitch their films again, the filmmaker admitted, “Oh, hell no. I’m aboard. I’m ready, I love the experience.”
Halloween Kills lands in theaters on October 16, 2020 and Halloween Ends lands in theaters on October 15, 2021.
Fans can meet Carpenter at Keystone Comic Con, running August 23rd to August 25th. Learn more by heading to Keystone Comic Con’s official site.
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