Back in 2018, Halloween revived the long-dormant franchise of the same name with a film that earned critical and financial success, leading to last year’s announcement that the creative team would be developing follow-up films Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends. Given how ominous both titles are, it sounds as though this could be the end of the franchise, but with fans just as excited about the series more than 40 after it launched in 1978 as ever, it’s hard to imagine a world where the horror franchise is truly over, though producer Ryan Freimann admits that the filmmakers have yet to start planning what could come after the 2022 release of Halloween Ends.
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“I have not thought that far ahead,” Freimann shared with ComicBook.com about what the future might hold for the series. “Right now, we’re in the midst of what we see as the [director] David Gordon Green trilogy. And the story, like with the Rob Zombie films, it had these little offshoots. They had done Halloween III: Season of the Witch way back then, so it’s like we’re living in the moment with these films that are successful, and we’ll see where it goes from there. I hope there is a theatrical experience. The future is still in place, but for right now, yes. It just speaks to me and Malek [Akkad].”
Unlike many other long-running franchises, which seemingly operate on a continuous narrative timeline, the Halloween series has often crafted sequels that ignore the events of their predecessors and create all-new narrative canons. The current canon, for example, takes place 40 years after the events of the 1978 Halloween and ignores all sequels, famously erasing the reveal in 1981’s Halloween II that Michael Myers was Laurie Strode’s brother.
With the culmination of Green’s trilogy of Halloween films still two years away, we likely won’t have solid updates about what the future holds for the series for quite some time. As we wait for the release of Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends, we can revisit where the franchise started with the illustrated The Legend of Halloween novelization.
The book is described, “Originally premiered in the fall of 1978, Halloween inspired a generation of innovative horror films and a slew of franchise sequels and reboots. The Legend of Halloween follows the iconic villain Michael Myers as he wreaks havoc on his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, on Halloween night. Laurie Strode, originally portrayed by actress Jamie Lee Curtis, falls victim to the escaped killer, but manages to fight for her life and confront her new foe along the way. Through eerie rhymes and quirky illustrations emulating the unsettling nature of the classic horror journey, Green and Tukel craft a reimagined telling of the beloved source material for longtime fans and newcomers to the franchise.”
The adaptation was co-written by David Gordon Green, while author/director Onur Tukel also serves as a co-writer, with Tukel having illustrated the adaptation. Malek Akkad and Ryan Freimann, producer and executive producer of the 2018 Halloween and forthcoming sequels, oversaw the project from Further Front Publishing.
Halloween Kills hits theaters on October 15, 2021 and Halloween Ends hits theaters on October 14, 2022. You can pre-order your copy of The Legend of Halloween at LegendofHalloween.com.
What do you hope could be next for the series? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!
