The Haunting of Hill House Creator Addresses Status of Netflix Franchise

By Patrick Cavanaugh

Mike Flanagan's The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor both borrowed stories from Shirley Jackson and Henry James respectively to honor those authors, leading some audiences to wonder why The Midnight Club, which serves as a similar tribute to Christopher Pike, should be considered a third season of The Haunting, with Flanagan then pointing out what sets this series apart. In his mind, what makes his The Haunting series unique is that both seasons are based on horror literature primarily about ghosts and that they have previously been adapted. This also clarifies why his upcoming The Fall of the House of Usher doesn't fall under his The Haunting umbrella and is its own adaptation.

"This is the first time that's ever crossed my mind!" Flanagan joked at a press event about when discussing why The Midnight Club wasn't a third season in his familiar series, per TVLine. "Our thing with The Haunting is that we always wanted it to be primarily based on a piece of classic horror literature, and ideally something that has been adapted before that we can do something different with." 

He continued, "When we think of The Haunting, we think about authors like [Edgar Allan] Poe and [Charles] Dickens, contemporaries that are more in the Henry James, Shirley Jackson world. The other criteria with it is that it has to primarily be about ghosts. That question came up with The Fall of the House of Usher because that was based on Poe. It's just not a ghost story, and so, there's no haunting there. [The Midnight Club] was always its own thing."

The Haunting of Hill House debuted back in 2018 and quickly earned a passionate following. Not only were audiences excited by the engaging storyline, but Flanagan snuck in a number of hidden ghosts in various sequences, seeing fans revisiting each episode to try to discover all the hiding figures. The follow-up season, The Haunting of Bly Manor, was unveiled in 2020.

Producer Trevor Macy added, "Not everything is The Haunting. We wrestle with that quite a bit because it would be great to do another one, but you have to be rigorous about what it is and what it isn't."

In December of 2020, Flanagan confirmed that there were no more seasons of the series planned at that time.

Stay tuned for potential updates on the future of The Haunting series.

Are you hoping we get a third season of the series? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

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