John Carpenter Informs Rotten Tomatoes That He’s Not Dead

Review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes regularly sends their regards to filmmakers to celebrate their birthday, but due to some peculiar wording, the site implied that John Carpenter was no longer alive while sending him birthday wishes. Carpenter himself took to Twitter to confirm that he is, in fact, alive and well.

Carpenter’s message read, “To Rotten Tomatoes, despite how it appears, I’m actually not dead.”

The mistake by the site was seemingly well-intended, merely wanting to celebrate the filmmaker responsible for such horror classics as Halloween, The Fog andPrince of Darkness.

The original tweet, which has since been deleted, read, “John Carpenter would have been 70 years old today! We celebrate his birthday by looking back at his five favorite films.”

After being inundated with messages from fans that Carpenter was alive, Rotten Tomatoes took the tweet down and apologized for their mistake.

Given that Carpenter hasn’t directed a film since 2010’s The Ward and that legendary horror filmmakers Wes Craven, George Romero and Tobe Hooper have all died within the last few years, it’s understandable that those unfamiliar with the director may think he had passed. Instead, the filmmaker is enjoying one of the busiest schedules of his career.

One reason the filmmaker hasn’t directed a movie is that he’s been focusing more on his musical projects, which include original recordings and re-recordings of his classic themes. In addition to being an accomplished writer and director, Carpenter also crafted many of his films’ scores, including Big Trouble in Little China, Assault on Precinct 13 and also Halloween and its iconic theme. The success of these albums has allowed the filmmaker to go on multiple world tours to play his iconic synthesizer tunes.

Carpenter returned to the franchise that made him an icon by serving as the executive producer on the new Halloween sequel, which just began shooting this past weekend. This marks his first direct involvement in an installment since Halloween III: Season of the Witch. The filmmaker even teased that he may craft the score for the sequel, with David Gordon Green and Danny McBride having co-written the script to be directed by Green.

In the world of television, Carpenter is helping develop the TV series Tales for a Halloween Night, based on a series of anthology graphic novels that he helped curate. One rumor is that Carpenter may even direct the series’ pilot.

The upcoming Halloween sequel is slated to hit theaters on October 19.

[H/T Twitter, TheHorrorMaster]