No One Knows Where The ‘Halloween’ Franchise Will Go After This Trilogy
By George Robbins
Even though Halloween weekend is over, there is still plenty of discussion rolling around in regards to movies that have to do with the season. It is kind of difficult not to think about these kinds of things since we revolve entire schedules off of the seasons and the holidays associated with them. Although Halloween season is a strong season for horror movies, there are still plenty of times where horror movies can be played that still make sense given that it is a genre that has become normalized over the years. Although the horror genre is generalized and those types of movies can release just about whenever they want, there is still a good window for them to release this time of year. Halloween just sets the scene for horror movies because it puts people in the mood to go out and see those types of movies.
The Halloween season is just the perfect time for people to want to go out and see horror movies in general which is why it is only natural that they have delayed the release of the upcoming ‘Halloween Kills.’ This year has just been a rough year in general for many people and the pandemic has been the root cause of a lot of distress. Many people haven’t been able to really do anything since the pandemic began back in March of this year and theaters have been suffering pretty harshly. When the pandemic began, theaters weren’t able to really do anything other than shut down and hope they would be able to reopen in the not-too-distant future. After a few months had past, theaters all over were finally able to reopen their doors to the public, but they had no incentives for people.
Movie theaters only thrive off of the fact that they have exclusivity when it comes to newer movies which mean that they are the only place to see new movies. If they are the only place for people to see new movies, then it is only natural that they would end up drawing people in who want to see those new films as soon as they can. Of course that exclusivity has a time frame, but theaters continue to keep getting new movies to draw people in and get them in seats. Unfortunately, the pandemic has complicated things as theaters have not been able to get new movies to show to the public. If studios don’t think that movie theaters are capable of bringing anyone in, then they won’t even bother sending any new movies out to theaters as there would be no point.
Studios recognize that they make a majority of their money based solely upon the sheer volume of people going into theaters. After theaters were given limitations on their capacity, they still weren’t quite sure if they should have even bothered with releasing movies. Warner Bros. decided to test those waters by releasing ‘Tenet‘ and while it may have started off strong, it ended up failing in the end. After just a few weeks, theaters saw a massive decline in attendance and it was made clear to studios that people are far too cautious to go out to theaters at the moment. It was after this somewhat failed release that they decided to push back all of their upcoming movie releases. Now there are very few movies that are still meant to release this year with no real blockbusters lined up for release.
Although it was prior to the release of ‘Tenet’ that the decision was made to push back ‘Halloween Kills,’ it was for the same reason. The studio working on the film, Blumhouse, realized that this would be the situation and so they pushed the movie back an entire year. This push is obviously one that many fans are finding fault in because it is such a heavy delay, but for the studio it really isn’t. They are still trying to get the movie to line up with its seasonal namesake for the atmospheric effect it would have and they want to release it when more people would readily go see it. Therefore, it really isn’t all that much of a surprise that they pushed the film back as far as they did.
For those unaware, the upcoming movie is the second film in a planned trilogy that has managed to successfully, so far, revitalize the character. Over the next couple of years we will, hopefully, be seeing these movies played out before us on the big screen. The big question is whether this will be the end of the franchise so many people have grown to love over the years and the answer is unknown to even the people making it. Producer Ryan Freimann, who is working on ‘Halloween Kills,’ has stated that he has no idea what will happen to the franchise after the trilogy ends. While we may not know if the franchise will continue in any way, we do know that it will always remain a legacy in the horror genre that will remain known to everyone as time moves on.