2018’s “Halloween” went over well with critics and at the box office. This year’s follow-up “Halloween Kills” was a critical dud, but still had a strong opening weekend.
With “Halloween Ends,” the third and final film in David Gordon Green’s trilogy, the plan is to make something very different to the previous films.
Appearing on the Empire Spoiler Special Podcast (via Indiewire), Green spoke about how ‘Ends’ goes in the opposite direction of ‘Kills’ and instead of opening up the scope, it turns it into a much more intimate and dark coming-of-age film that harkens back to a different John Carpenter classic – his adaptation of Stephen King’s “Christine”:
“There’s not a lot of games in it, there’s not a lot of wittiness and retro joy. It’s kind of a coming-of-age film, and it’s a very different tone. And that’s what excited me about it, is to have the three chapters that I’ve been involved in be very different from each other.
They are all there to honor Carpenter but aren’t necessary just emulating him. I sent Carpenter the new draft of ‘Halloween Ends’ the other night, and I said, ‘If it feels too ‘Christine,’ let me know.’ For ‘Halloween Ends,’ it’s just a love of Carpenter, you know. It’s more than just, ‘Hey, here’s a character and a community that you’ve created.’ It’s, ‘Here’s an appreciation of your legendary body of work.'”
Sandwiched between 1982’s “The Thing” and 1984’s “Starman,” “Christine” is arguably the weakest film of Carpenter’s unblemished run of cinematic classics in the 1980s, but is still held up in high regard as one of the better King adaptations.
“Halloween Ends” is scheduled for release on October 14th 2022.
