A full year after Halloween Ends had come out and brought the reboot trilogy to a close, Miramax snagged the TV rights for the iconic slasher franchise. You wouldn’t think this series would ever leave the TV space, but that’s apparently what it’s doing, and it’ll have its own space where Michael Myers can do his thing. (Murder. That thing is lots of murders.)
Talking to Deadline a few days ago, Miramax’s worldwide TV head Marc Helwig touched on the show to-be. He had no problem saying the show will use the original 1978 Halloween as a jumping off point. Without getting too into specifics, he hinted it may explore characters “that we haven’t really focused on that much in recent film versions or even in a number of them. 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.”
Each new Halloween sub-franchise has opted to start from one of the earlier movies and carve out its own canon from there. The reboot flicks from David Gordon Green took place after the first and took potshots at that film’s sequel, like Halloween 2 revealing Michael and Laurie Strode were long-lost siblings. Conversely, Rob Zombie’s 2007 movie was a remake/reimagining of the original, while its sequel ended on the idea of Laurie possibly taking over as the new Michael.
Speaking about the show more broadly, Helwig called getting this off the ground a “big priority.” (One imagines part of that fast tracking can be owed to the TV success of fellow slasher Chucky, whose show is on its third season.) Optimistically, he said the creative team should be finalized “very soon.” The ultimate aim is for Halloween to live on through TV and film as some larger universe. Whether audiences go for that, or if the franchise even has enough gas in the tank for that to be viable, remains to be seen.
Need more entertainment? Pedestrian Television has launched on 9Now where you can watch iconic TV series like Just Shoot Me, cult classic movies like Fright Night, and homegrown content like Eternal Family. Watch all that and more for free, 24/7 on 9Now.