'Halloween' Reboot May Trigger Anti-Woke Mob With Female Michael Myers

The Halloween reboot may see the return of the female version of Michael Myers.

The Halloween franchise is going under the (kitchen) knife once again, as Miramax confirmed in October 2023 that a reboot is in early development, which is reportedly the first installment in a shared universe. We don’t know much about the reboot yet, but we know it will be a TV series, a first for Halloween.

Details are scarce, but last year, Marc Helwig, Head Of Worldwide Television at Miramax, told Deadline that the “foundation” of the new series is John Carpenter’s 1978 film. He explained that it will focus on “the characters of that film, and perhaps a group of characters” that haven’t appeared much “in recent film versions or even in a number of them.”

He added, “It’s a creative reset completely and going back to the original film, as opposed to spinning out of any of the more recent film adaptations.”

Whatever route it takes, another Halloween reboot was inevitable. The franchise is already made up of numerous timelines, thanks to anthology sequels, remakes, and films that retcon previous entries and only adhere to the continuity of John Carpenter’s original 1978 film.

There really is no stopping Michael Myers.

You can shoot him, throw him over a balcony, decapitate him, and even blow him up, but you can’t kill the bogeyman. Halloween (1978) director John Carpenter recently explained what makes Michael unstoppable, but the truth is simpler than we thought: it’s the studios!

Whatever studio that happens to be, of course. Blumhouse Productions only had a three-picture deal for David Gordon Green’s three recent films, Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills (2021), and Halloween Ends (2022), where the continuity of that series ends.

Any chance of those films being followed up is incredibly slim, as Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney) is killed on screen at the end of Ends for all to see — both the Haddonfield residents and the audience. At last, Michael Myers is dead (well, in that timeline anyway).

Related: 5 Reasons Why ‘Halloween Ends’ Is the Best Sequel Since ‘Halloween’

On the other hand, he could come back in the upcoming Halloween shared universe. It’s expected to create an entirely new bogeyman from scratch, or perhaps it will take a page out of Halloween III: Season of the Witch‘s book and act as more of an anthology series.

Or, it may follow another established timeline. After all, many fans have been calling for a proper follow-up to Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) for decades.

While there are already two sequels to that film, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989) and Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) — the Thorn trilogy, as it’s collectively known — they didn’t go down particularly well with fans, largely because the middle film is among the worst in the franchise, while the final entry is a baffling mess, as it tries to explain Michael Myers’ abilities, but fails miserably and then some.

Halloween 4, however, has become a cult classic in its own right. While it feels like a stock Halloween movie for the most part, its less-is-more approach suddenly feels a lot more welcome by the time you get to the convoluted and nonsensical Halloween 6.

Related: All 7 Jamie Lee Curtis Performances In the ‘Halloween’ Movies Ranked

But it’s really 4‘s ending that separates it from other entries. It might be a generic outing, and it might even feature one of the worst Michael Myers masks, but the final scene goes against the grain, as Michael’s young niece, Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris), the daughter of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), picks up a kitchen knife and attacks her foster mother.

She’s even wearing the same clown costume her uncle wore as a young boy when he killed his sister Judith. Unfortunately, Halloween 5 retcons this ending, suggesting that Jamie didn’t kill her mother, and instead of having the young girl become evil just like that ending implies, she is only traumatized by the experience, so much so that she’s unable to speak.

Jamie is also now telepathically connected to Michael Myers after making physical contact with him at the end of Halloween 4, which, presumably, is why she attacked her mother. Having a female version of Michael Myers in the franchise would have certainly been interesting, and would still make a welcome change today.

Related: ‘Elm Street’ Reboot May Feature a Female Freddy Krueger

But it’s not just fans who remain disappointed with this ending being retconned; actress Danielle Harris said at the “H25 Convention” in 2003 (the original film’s 25th anniversary) that she would have at least wanted to become “sidekick” to Michael Myers in Halloween 5.

When a guest asked the question, “About the end of part four, [were] there any plans of making you the slasher [the killer]?” Harris replied, saying, “You know, that’s what I thought was going to happen. I thought I was going to come back and I was going to be the killer, which would have been awesome. A little frightening but awesome. Or at least his [Michael’s] sidekick, you know, something kind of crazy.”

She also said during the Q&A, “I’d love to do another one.” Fortunately, she got her wish and returned to the franchise in Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007) and its sequel Halloween II (2009), in which she plays the character Annie Brackett from the original 1978 film, opposite Scout Taylor-Compton’s version of the iconic final girl Laurie Strode.

Related: A Recap of the ‘Halloween’ Franchise Before You Watch ‘Halloween Ends’

Harris certainly isn’t one to keep her thoughts to herself where certain decisions in the franchise are concerned. Following the premiere of Ends in 2022, the actress, along with Scout Taylor-Compton, criticized the film on their podcast Talk Scary to Me.

“It was a really cool story if it was about a new serial killer and what it was like for someone to become a serial killer,” Compton said, complaining that Ends focuses more on Michael Myers copycat killer Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell). She continued, “But then they just kind of threw Michael Myers in there, is what it seemed like to me.”

“Where are the kills?” Harris added, criticizing the lack of kills in the film, which, like Michael’s screentime, remains a common complaint from fans. “Where’s Michael? What the hell is going on?”

Related: Where to Next For the ‘Halloween’ Franchise After ‘Ends’?

But while Harris has had two slices of the Halloween pumpkin pie (which equates to four films), we still can’t help but imagine what could have been with her original character, Jamie Lloyd. Will the upcoming Halloween reboot revisit that storyline and pick up the thread by ignoring the events of the last two films in the Thorn trilogy? It’s unlikely.

It’s not an impossible scenario, though. After all, the franchise is no stranger to wiping previous films from canon. Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) ignores the Thorn trilogy, while David Gordon Green’s trilogy ignores everything since the 1978 original.

While you can make the case that Halloween will likely be rebooted from scratch again when looking at the history of the franchise, there’s also an argument to be made that it has only been properly rebooted once, with the Rob Zombie films.

Sure, while a number of films in the series have ignored previous films, they’ve mostly opted for the retcon option, which always involves following, at the very least, the original 1978 film. Either way, in doing so, this has created several timelines.

Fortunately, this also means that there are a few threads the reboot could follow where a female version of Michael Myers is concerned.

Halloween 4‘s Jamie Lloyd

As we’ve already mentioned, Jamie Lloyd, who is one of two final girls in parts four and five, is the most obvious choice for a female Michael Myers. And it’s likely Danielle Harris would love the opportunity to return to Halloween, while restoring her original character.

While Jamie Lloyd is (brutally) killed off by her uncle Michael Myers (George P Wilbur) in Halloween 6 (in which she’s played by JC Brandy), there are many examples of characters coming back to life in this franchise due to new timelines.

Among them are Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), Samuel Loomis (Donald Pleasence), and Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens). Jamie Lloyd should be no exception. Fans would love to see Harris return to Haddonfield, this time on the other side of the mask.

Laurie Strode From the Rob Zombie Films

Scout Taylor-Compton plays final girl Laurie Strode (whose previous name was Angel Myers) in Rob Zombie’s two Halloween films. While it’s unlikely we’ll ever see her version of Laurie Strode return, there’s plenty of room for the actress to make a comeback.

The 2009 film, which is a sequel to the first installment from Rob Zombie, has a sense of finality, which is rare in this franchise unless we’re looking at Ends. However, while Michael Myers (Tyler Mane) is killed in the film, the essence of evil seemingly lives on.

Before the credits roll, we cut to Laurie in a bleach-white psychiatric ward, where she’s having the same visions her brother Michael had: of their dead mother and a white horse. This, along with her wicked smile, suggests that Laurie will take over from her brother.

Related: Every ‘Halloween’ Movie Ranked Worst to Best

Latest Halloween Trilogy’s Allyson Nelson

Unlike Harris’ Jamie Lloyd and Taylor-Compton’s Laurie Strode, it’s never suggested that the character Allyson Nelson (Andi Matichak) of the three David Gordon Green films, the granddaughter of Laurie Strode, is a potential psychopathic killer in the making.

That said, there could be a huge opportunity for the upcoming reboot to revisit the character of Allyson, who was last seen driving beyond the Haddonfield city limits at the end of the trilogy-topping 2022 sequel after facing Michael Myers one last time.

Allyson is a deeply traumatized character. Not only did she grow up in the shadow of Laurie’s trauma, as well as that of her mother Karen Nelson (Judy Greer), but Michael killed all her friends, both her parents, and even corrupted her love interest, Corey Cunningham.

Latest Halloween Trilogy’s Laurie Strode

Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode from the latest Halloween trilogy is the most likely candidate for a female Michael Myers. While the 66-year-old actress has seemingly closed the door on the franchise, the fact that she has returned a number of times throughout her career after promising she was done is rather telling.

Not only that, but on October 31 last year, during an interview with Entertainment Weekly, she cryptically said, “Never say never” of another potential return.

One of the biggest clues that there were some plans to have Curtis’ Strode become the successor to Michael Myers’ bogeyman is at the end of the novelization of Halloween Ends.

Though there are similarities between the film and the book’s ending, the latter shows that Laurie has become a recluse once again (as depicted in 2018’s Halloween). This time, however, she feels the “pull” of Myers’ mask, which she now has in her possession.

If the reboot does bring back, or create from scratch, a female version of Michael Myers, it will undoubtedly lead to backlash and online discourse by triggering the “anti-woke mob.”

This tends to happen a lot these days whenever a film or television show changes the gender or ethnicity of an established character. Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016), The Little Mermaid (2023), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023) are just a few examples where this has happened.

Would you like to see Danielle Harris reprise her role as Jamie Lloyd in the Halloween reboot? Let Inside the Magic know in the comments down below!