This past weekend, David Gordon Green’s “Halloween” proved to be a huge hit at the box office, raking in over $75 million, with an estimated budget of only $10 million. This “Halloween” film is the 11th in the series and the third to be simply called “Halloween.”
Like “Halloween H20: 20 Years Later,” this film undid all the series’ films that no one likes, save for the original, to which it serves as a direct sequel. So, this film should really be called “Halloween 2,” but the filmmakers do not want fans getting confused with the “Halloween 2” from 1981 or the Rob Zombie-directed “Halloween 2” from 2009. Zombie’s films, like this one, also served as a reboot of the beloved series intended for modern audiences, but fans did not take too well to the sadistic, grungy tone from the person behind the song “Dragula.” Jamie Lee Curtis (“Scream Queens”) returns to the series this time, though. This has not been done since “Halloween: Resurrection,” “Halloween H20: 20 Years Later” before that and “Halloween 2” before that.
Was that confusing? Yes. Why? Because the studios behind the “Halloween” films, like many others, are constantly trying to resuscitate dead franchises in hopes that fans will just forget all the bad sequels and think that having three films in a franchise with the same exact title is normal. Similarly to “Halloween,” the “Terminator” franchise is also following this idea of simply “forgetting” about the bad films in the series, having the currently untitled sixth film be a direct sequel to “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” The film is even bringing back Linda Hamilton as the iconic Sarah Connor, just like “Halloween” did with Curtis.
Clearly, this particular iteration of the Michael Myers story worked, bringing in gobs of money and pleasing fans of the series while also capitalizing on the 40th anniversary of the original film. However, is this series ever going to definitively end? Will fans ever see Michael Myers’ endless career of slaughters and assaults screech to a halt? The studios have milked a very simple story of killer-kills-teens for 40 years now, and whenever the series dies out or one narrative is finished, Curtis comes back to kick everything off again. This is similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger with “Terminator,” Bruce Willis with “Die Hard,” Sylvester Stallone with “Rocky” and “Rambo,” Harrison Ford with “Indiana Jones” and almost Sigourney Weaver with “Alien.”
Think about it. How many film franchises have actually ended and not been rebooted, remade or resurrected? “Back to the Future” finished its story in the 80s, and that was that, a finished story, on to the next original idea. This year, fans got a third reboot of the “Predator” series. It arrived to theaters with embarrassingly poor reviews and mediocre box-office returns. When studios are in need of some fast cash, they go back to the well and make another sequel to “Pirates of the Caribbean,” even though the narrative was completed after the third film, leading to two critically reviled sequels. Look at the “Toy Story” trilogy, one of the most beloved series of films ever made, a perfect three-act story. A fourth film is currently slated to come out next year, in addition to the sixth “Terminator” film and even a reboot of “Hellboy,” a new addition to the “franchises that will seemingly never die” club.
It may not be a terrible thing that big movie studios have properties that continue to excite fans for years and years. In 40 years, are fans going to be celebrating the 80th anniversary of “Halloween” with “Halloween 34: He’s Still Alive”? Will any franchise ever have the guts to simply tell the full story it wishes to tell and then close the book?
Sequels and reboots are not inherently bad, and for certain types of franchises, such as comic book heroes or anything else based on pre-existing material, there may be enough stories to keep a series going for 100 years like “Godzilla” or “James Bond.” But four decades of a serial killer franchise? Michael, you had a good run, best to end on top, though. Fans do not want a repeat of “Halloween: Resurrection.” There is only so much Busta Rhymes a human can take.
Image from John Campea via YouTube
