Back in October of last year it was announced that, after a heated bidding war with genre titans A24, Miramax and Trancas International Films had secured the TV rights to the Halloween franchise, and today, Miramax's Head of Worldwide Television Marc Helwig brings us some intriguing updates...
Speaking with Deadline, Helwig reveals that the Halloween television series will be taking things back to the start, spinning off of John Carpenter's 1978 original rather than David Gordon Green and Blumhouse's recent reboot trilogy:
“The foundation of it is the original film, the John Carpenter movie, the characters of that film, and perhaps a group of 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.”
Considering there are thirteen movies in the Halloween franchise, stripping things back to the basics of the game-changing original could prove to be a very wise idea, given that the most recent reboot wrapped things up pretty neatly. Referring to Gordon Green's trilogy, Helwig notes that: "I don’t think that is an opportunity to go off the back of that.”
Miramax and Trancas co-owning the Halloween rights also means that this television show could spawn an entire new universe of Halloween stories and characters. Producer and CEO of Trancas, Malek Akkad, has worked on Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later, Halloween: Resurrection, Halloween (2007) and Halloween II (2009), so he hopefully has a bunch of ideas up his sleeve.
It may be too soon to start speculating just yet though, as Helwig reveals that the foundations of the show are still coming together behind the scenes:
“We’re on a fast track, it’s a big priority for us. We’ve had lots of exciting conversations in recent months with a number of really talented people, and I think we’ll have a pretty good idea of what we’re going to be doing very soon [...] We’re hoping to lock down the creative team very soon.”
Whatever's in store for the Halloween show we're excited - it'll be Michael Myers' first small screen outing, joining his slasher pals Chucky, who's killing it over on SyFy and USA, and Jason, who is getting his own prequel series, Crystal Lake, via A24 and Peacock.
We'll bring you any and all updates on the Halloween series as we get them!
