Danny McBride Explains the Pressures of Making a New ‘Halloween’ Film

Creating any movie comes with massive amounts of pressure, as filmmakers hope their movie finds an audience, but when your film is a sequel to a well-known saga that could make or break that franchise’s future, the pressure is hard to qualify. Danny McBride, co-writer of the upcoming Halloween sequel, shared just how intense he felt that pressure and how much he wants to make fans happy.

“I just hope that we don’t f**k it up and piss people off,” McBride told Yahoo!. “This is such a diehard fan base. You don’t want horror fans being your enemies because they show up at your house with masks on.”

Luckily for the filmmaker, he can count himself and co-writer/director David Gordon Green among that “diehard fan base,” hopefully ensuring he knows what it will take to make audiences happy.

“We are diehard fans of Halloween,” McBride confessed. “We’re watching all the sequels and where things have taken left turns here and there that maybe bites for fans, and at least trying to deliver what we would have wanted to see. Hopefully that will line up with most fans.”

Considering most audiences are familiar with McBride and Green for their comedic works like Pineapple Express, Your Highness and Vice Principals, this exploration of the horror realm will mark all-new territory for the duo to cover. McBride ensured that audiences shouldn’t expect a comedic interpretation of the horror classic.

“I think you should be very scared. I mean, this isn’t a comedy at all. I think there was, like, maybe one joke on the page, but the rest is straight horror,” McBride clarified. “So hopefully it gets in people’s heads and keeps them up late at night.”

Another element to the pressure that the filmmaker faces comes from the various narratives that the saga has already explored.

With Halloween III: Season of the Witch, the saga attempted to depart from the Michael Myers mythology, resulting in disappointed fans. The next three films returned to the Myers mythos, but Halloween H20: 20 Years Later erased the events of those films, creating the third timeline.

Rob Zombie made two films in a remake universe, creating the fourth timeline. McBride and Green’s new film will take place after the original and brings back Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, who died in another timeline, creating the fifth storyline in the saga.

The new Halloween is slated to hit theaters on October 19, 2018.

[H/T Yahoo!]