Halloween Kills (2021)

[Adam Lenhardt]

Title: Halloween Kills

Genre: Horror

Director: David Gordon Green

Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak

Release: 2020-10-16

Plot: A sequel to Blumhouse's 'Halloween (2018)'. Plot unknown.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Written by David Gordon Green & Danny McBride & Scott Teems, based on characters created by John Carpenter and Debra Hill, the film will be directed by David Gordon Green and produced by Malek Akkad, Jason Blum and Bill Block. John Carpenter, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jeanette Volturno, Couper Samuelson, Danny McBride, David Gordon Green and Ryan Freimann are executive producers. Ryan Turek is overseeing the project for Blumhouse.

 

[Jim517]

Please stop with these bad movies ! Enough is enough !

 

[TravisR]

I'm sure an announcement is about a year away but I'm guessing that John Carpenter and his band will be scoring these pictures.

 

[EricSchulz]

Enough!

 

[Tino]

Bring em on. The last one was terrific. Can’t wait for this one and the last one of this trilogy titled Halloween Ends.

 

[Tino]

I'm sure an announcement is about a year away but I'm guessing that John Carpenter and his band will be scoring these pictures.

Yup and Halloween 2018 was a terrific score with updated classic cues and great new ones. I listen to it frequently.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Please stop with these bad movies ! Enough is enough !

Enough!

You guys do have the prerogative of just not watching them!

 

[JohnMor]

Finally! It’s about time. I’m in for a definitive end. Would have preferred one sequel over a trilogy, but I’ll take it.

 

[Malcolm R]

Jamie Lee Curtis, first day of filming on Halloween Kills:

https://ew.com/movies/2019/10/08/jamie-lee-curtis-halloween-kills-sequel-tease-photo-first-day/

 

[TravisR]

Moved to October 15, 2021.

 

[Malcolm R]

New teaser:



The illustrated children's book version of the original Halloween:

https://ew.com/books/halloween-david-gordon-green-john-caprpenter-onur-tukel/

 

[Malcolm R]

Decision to go day-and-date with streaming was Jason Blum's, not Universal's, and was based on the theatrical failure of his last film, Freaky. But at least it sounds like he consulted the cast and crew beforehand:

“It was my idea to do it. [Peacock] didn’t approach me. I approached them,” Blum told Collider. “I, like everyone else, am a big believer in the theatrical experience. I think eventually I think there should be windows. I think Universal’s strategy of the three-week window is a great strategy, but I had a bad distribution experience with ‘Freaky.’ That movie is a great movie, and it didn’t get seen because the distribution of it got all twisted up. My fault.”

“Freaky,” directed by “Happy Death Day” helmer Christopher Landon and starring Vince Vaughn and Kathryn Newton, opened last October exclusively in theaters and flailed out at the box office. The body-swap horror movie did not even crack the $10 million mark at the box office. Universal took “Freaky” to VOD platforms in the film’s fourth weekend of release.

“I didn’t want to go through that experience again,” Blum said. “I didn’t want to have a movie that I’m really proud of that I think is great and have there be an excuse why people didn’t see it. So I’m the one who pitched Universal. And then I pitched Jamie [Lee Curtis] and David, and it was my idea. I stand behind it. I’m glad that we’re doing it.” (IndieWire)

https://www.indiewire.com/2021/09/j...iversal-halloween-kills-streaming-1234668455/

 

[Michael Elliott]

I plan on seeing it in theaters. There's a big difference between a proven series and a weird film that had a trailer that probably confused a great number of people.

 

[Malcolm R]

I plan on seeing it in theaters. There's a big difference between a proven series and a weird film that had a trailer that probably confused a great number of people.

Agreed. I've seen Freaky. I'm not sure it was going to be a hit in any environment.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

That may be true but I also think it’s true that all movies have shelf lives and the type of horror Blumhouse makes in general seems to be on the shorter side. These are films generally made on smaller budgets that count on smart advertising and anticipation to drive people towards seeing them quickly in a very front loaded way. I think these are films that people either see right away or not at all, and waiting a month for VOD pushes anyone in a “I can’t go to a theater right now” mindset towards missing it altogether, because there’s always a similar type Blumhouse just around the corner.

I think Halloween as a franchise has a little more leeway but I see this as a smart move. I’m a much more casual Halloween viewer than you guys. I’ve seen some but not all of the pictures. If it’s fall and one is in theaters and there’s a good buzz around it, I sometimes will go. If I miss it on original release, it’s not something I’ll double back to for a winter or springtime home release, and it’s already yesterday’s news the following fall. Courting more casual viewers like me is essential towards tentpole success vs genre success, and making the movie as widely available as possible at the time it’s most relevant to moviegoers is a great way to get more people onboard. I’d probably be willing to join Peacock for a month to watch this in October. I wouldn’t be willing to pay PVOD prices or probably any price to see it in November.

 

[TravisR]

Needless to say, I hate this idea with the passion of a thousand burning suns and can only hope that they don't repeat this error next year when the third (or depending on your numbering, the fourth or thirteenth) one comes out.

I'll be there on the opening Thursday night and I imagine there will be a sparse crowd since many will be watching it at home that weekend. While things are very different than three years ago, I saw the 'first' one in a sold-out theater on Thursday night because if you wanted to see it, you had to go to a movie theater.

Agreed. I've seen Freaky. I'm not sure it was going to be a hit in any environment.

I really liked Freaky and I agree with you. That's a trailer that I imagine that many people looked at and somehow didn't understand that the movie is tongue and cheek and then write it off as "That looks stupid. I'll watch it on Netflix." Also, it insanely opened two weeks after Halloween time during a global pandemic so I suspect that might have been a bit of a hindrance to its box office take too. Using that movie as a barometer to guess the success of a horror sequel to a movie that opened to over $75 million and that's the only major horror release of the spooky season is dumb and despite what Blum says, it's only being done for the promotion of Universal's streaming service.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I'll be there on the opening Thursday night and I imagine there will be a sparse crowd since many will be watching it at home that weekend.

I genuinely don’t believe that’s the case. All available metrics for other simultaneous releases shows that there are distinct groups and one doesn’t really cannablize the other. While there are of course exceptions, in general the people who watch at home on the first weekend are people who never would have come out anyway. HBO Max recently indicated that their at home performance mirrors what theatrical is doing - if it underperforms in one venue, it underperforms in the other as well. In The Heights flopped theatrically and flopped on HBO Max at the same time, for instance. The day and date hybrid is more likely to depress future VOD revenue rather than current theatrical revenue.

 

[Tommy R]

Kind of interesting that Jamie Lee Curtis will have appeared in a Halloween movie in each decade since the 70’s:

70’s : Halloween
80’s : Halloween II
90’s : Halloween H20
00’s : Halloween Resurrection
10’s : Halloween
20’s : Halloween Kills

 

[TravisR]

I genuinely don’t believe that’s the case. All available metrics for other simultaneous releases shows that there are distinct groups and one doesn’t really cannablize the other.

I don't believe it's possible to offer people a 'free' option to see a movie and not have a significant amount of them take it over the option of paying to see the movie in a theater. And in the case of a smaller movie like Malignant or Cry Macho or The Many Saints of Newark or Halloween Kills, none of those are movies that scream for the big screen to the average viewer so that makes it easier for them to stay home and watch it. I'm not very optimistic about Dune's chances but at least that's a movie that's clearly designed to be seen in a movie theater.

It seems like Venom is going to be a decent-sized hit this weekend (and Bond next week) but if they were available at home, I can't imagine them making as much as they will.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that every stream is a lost ticket sale but there's no way that it's a negligible amount either. The worst part is that theaters have just gone through the worst time they've ever had so any money lost hurts.