David Gordon Green may have made “Halloween Ends” last year, but does the “Halloween” franchise ever really end? Deadline reports that Miramax Television emerges victorious in a steep bidding war against Blumhouse Productions and A24 for the TV rights to “Halloween.” The deal with Trancas International Films allows Miramax to develop and co-produce a TV series based on the IP, including a first-look agreement on other TV projects for the international marketplace. What’s more, Miramax and Trancas envision the new “Halloween” series to launch a cinematic universe spanning both TV and film.
READ MORE: ‘Halloween Ends’: Pretty Please? Promise? [Review]
Miramax’s Head Of Global TV Marc Helwig will oversee the new franchise with Trancas head Malek Akkan, son of the late Moustapha Akkad, who built the “Halloween” series. “We couldn’t be more excited to bring Halloween to television,” Helwig said in a press statement. “We are thrilled to expand our long and successful partnership with Trancas and the brilliant Malek Akkad in introducing this iconic franchise to a new form of storytelling and a new generation of fans.” Miramax and Trancas helped co-produce Green’s successful “Halloween” trilogy for Blumhouse, with new films in 2018, 2021, and last year. But this new partnership is between Miramax and Trancas alone.
Miramax outbid Blumhouse and A24 for the TV rights to “Halloween” after a fierce weeks-long bidding war. IP like “Halloween” rarely becomes available like this, and there was reportedly lots of interest in it due to Green’s successful revival and the franchise’s popularity. In the age of streaming, it’s hard to launch a new franchise, so snagging one as popular and enduring as “Halloween” is a coup of sorts for Miramax. It also hits into the studio’s penchant to mine its library to develop TV series. They’ve already done so with “Project Greenlight” and Guy Ritchie‘s “The Gentlemen” and have TV plans for other Miramax movies, too, like “Gangs Of New York,” “Chocolat,” and others.
But in the case of “Halloween,” its endurance may not be a strong suit. Spanning thirteen films, the franchise’s narrative surrounding its iconic slasher Michael Myers has been retconned three times and remade once. And outside of John Carpenter‘s masterful 1978 original, none of the “Halloween” movies are any good; a guilty pleasure for slasher fans, but generally inadequate as horror movies or dramatic films. But Green’s recent trilogy made some …interesting creative decisions and breathed new life in a franchise that, until the release of Green’s “Halloween” in 2018, had been dormant for nine years. Maybe Miramax and Trancas have ideas like that in mind for their new TV series and potential cinematic universe.
For non-slasher fans, the “Halloween” franchise focuses on Michael Myers, who murders his older sister when he’s six and gets committed to a sanitarium. He escapes fifteen years later to stalk and kill babysitters in his fictional hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois on Halloween, with his doctor Dr. Samuel Loomis (Donald Pleasance) in tow to stop him. Jamie Lee Curtis‘ Laurie Strode, a babysitter in Carpenter’s first film, is usually in the mix, too, appearing in seven films in the series (Scout Taylor-Compton plays Laurie in Rob Zombie‘s two “Halloween” films from 2007 and 2009, respectively).
So will Miramax’s “Halloween” TV series follow the franchise’s usual formula or really shake things up? We’ll soon find out, but if anything, this news proves Tommy Doyle’s point from the 1978 film: you can’t kill the boogeyman.