Credit: Universal Pictures / Miramax / Blumhouse ProductionsWith yet another Halloween reboot in development, fans are eagerly waiting to find out what’s next for the long-running slasher franchise. If the latest installment, Halloween Ends (2022), taught us anything, it’s that “evil doesn’t die — it just changes shape.”
Speaking of changing shape, the reboot will take the form of a TV series, a first for Halloween.
Details are scarce, but last year, Marc Helwig, Head of Worldwide Television at Miramax, told Deadline last year 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.”
As such, the film will not follow the recent Halloween trilogy (2018’s Halloween, Halloween Kills, Halloween Ends) from director David Gordon Green. Instead, it will carve out yet another brand-new timeline that only acknowledges the events of the original film as canon.
However, fans don’t need to wait for bogeyman Michael Myers to return to Haddonfield for more official content as there’s plenty you probably didn’t know existed.
Similar to the original 1978 film and its 1981 sequel, Halloween II, each entry in David Gordon Green’s trilogy has its own tie-in novel: “Halloween” (2018) by John Passarella, “Halloween Kills” (2021) by Tim Waggoner, and “Halloween Ends” by Paul Brad Logan.
As tends to be the case with tie-in novels, these ones follow the main beats of their silver-screen counterparts while offering up plenty of material that never made it to screen.
So, fans hoping to learn more about Michael Myers, for instance, will be thrilled to know that these books don’t shy away from revealing things about him that weren’t explored on film.
Collectively, the three films grossed $498.7 million worldwide against their combined budget of $63 million. However, only the first film, Halloween (2018), received positive reviews. Kills and Ends were met with negative receptions, especially the 2022 trilogy-topper.
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Among Ends‘ most criticized aspects is the lack of Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney), whose essentially replaced by newcomer Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell). Corey is a teenager who succumbs to his dark side after an encounter with the elusive bogeyman and after stealing his mask, which this film implies has a supernatural hold over its owner.
Consequently, by the time we get to the highly anticipated showdown between Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Michael Myers, it’s a little too late. Not only does the should-be epic battle feel shoehorned in at the last minute, but it’s also frustratingly short-lived.
The film ends with Laurie leading hundreds of Haddonfield residents, all of whom have been scorned by Michael Myers’ bloody rampage in Kills, to witness the destruction of the killer’s body via industrial shredder. This marks the first time the character has been killed on screen in a Halloween film.
Sometime later, Laurie, who’s finishing up her memoirs, begins to rekindle her lost romance with police officer Frank Hawkins (Will Patton). Before the credits roll, we get shots of several rooms inside Laurie’s home, an homage to the ending of the 1978 film but flipped on its head: instead of hearing Michael breathing — an iconic scene that hints at his inevitable return — there’s nothing but silence. Peace.
We also see Michael Myers’ mask sitting on Laurie’s coffee table for safe-keeping, but both its owner and the power it holds over Haddonfield appears to be gone for good.
Related: Michael Myers Could Be Living a “Normal Life” Between ‘Halloween’ Movies
If you’re a hater of the film, there’s not much in the novelization, “Halloween Ends,” that will change your mind. There are some extra scenes with Michael, but, unlike the other two books, “Halloween (2018)” and “Halloween Kills,” there’s not much meat on the bones here.
However, the ending is very different to that of the film. While we still say goodbye to Laurie as she finishes her memoirs in her home, she’s hardly receptive when Frank Hawkins knocks at her door. Instead, she closes the door on him and retreats into the darkness of her home.
“Laurie sat at her computer, bathed in the afternoon light,” it reads. “A light that did little to soften the dark look behind her eyes.” It adds, “Laurie opened her desk drawer and looked at the Myers mask stuffed inside. She removed it and studied the shapeless eyes looking back at her. She ran her finger across the latex. She felt its age in the rippled skin. She felt its pull.”
After she shuts the door on Frank, her friend and love interest watches Laurie’s “shape” move away from the window and disappear from his view, a sight that causes “a chill to run down his spine,” a “feeling he’d felt before in the presence of another shape.”
It goes on: “In every room, even when you could not see her, Laurie could be heard breathing. Watching from within the shadows. Unseen but felt. Inside Laurie’s office, his mask rested on her coffee table. Waiting for its new shape.”
The idea of Laurie Strode replacing Michael Myers is a fascinating one. Throughout the Halloween franchise, Laurie has faced off against the psychopath time and time again.
While these battles span multiple timelines and, as such, different versions of Laurie, the character has always been the embodiment of good. She’s the complete opposite to Michael Myers, who, as Dr. Samuel Loomis (Donald Pleasence) once put it, is “evil on two legs.”
Whether Halloween will ever experiment with a female Michael Myers remains to be seen.
Past films have certainly flirted with this concept, from Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), in which Michael Myers’ niece Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris) almost becomes her uncle’s successor, to Rob Zombie’s Halloween II (2009), in which Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) seemingly replaces her brother as the new bogeyman.
There’s no release date for the Halloween TV series.
Would you like to see Laurie Strode become the new Haddonfield bogeyman? Or perhaps a new female Michael Myers altogether? Sound off in the comments!