Today, April 11th, marks the 20th anniversary of the theatrical release of writer/director Rob Zombie’s feature debut, House of 1000 Corpses. That film turned out to be the first installment in the “Firefly” franchise, as members of the homicidal Firefly family returned for two sequels: The Devil’s Rejects and 3 from Hell. To celebrate the anniversary, Entertainment Weekly caught up with Zombie for an interview about the making of House of 1000 Corpses and the struggle to get it released. As the interview nears its end, Zombie is asked if there are any plans to make a new entry in the Firefly franchise. He reveals that not only does he not intend to make another Firefly movie, but we also shouldn’t expect to see a sequel to his version of The Munsters that was released last year.
When asked if we’ve seen the last of the Fireflys, Zombie replied, “Probably as far as theatrical films go. Maybe there’ll be graphic novels or other things. At this point, the three movies feel like they go well together. It took a lot of work to get the third one made and no one’s getting any younger. Even with the third one, Sid Haig, from the time that we started talking about the movie to the time we shot it, his health declined so severely that he went from being one of the leads to barely being able to keep him on set for an hour to work. So, yeah, I think we got in just under the wire to make a trilogy.“
As for The Munsters, Zombie said that was “an exhausting movie to make. It took almost five years of non-stop pushing. And then, being in a foreign country, during the height of COVID, was not as much fun as you would think! [Laughs] So the whole experience was very draining.” So when asked if he would make a sequel, he said, “I won’t and I don’t want to. The only reason I would ever want to is because I like making sequels. You have so little time with the first movie to develop these characters. Towards the end of the Munsters film you go, okay, now they’re all set, you can really jump in with what they’re all about. But c’est la vie. That’s why I like the Firefly stuff — I really got to develop them over the course of three movies, because the characters, by the third movie, are not the characters they start out as in the first movie.“
I can’t say I’m sorry to hear Zombie doesn’t want to make any more Firefly or Munsters movies. I thought the decision to make 3 from Hell was already questionable, so I’m fine with that franchise being put to rest. And I didn’t find his version of The Munsters to be very amusing or enjoyable, so I wasn’t left wanting to see more of that.
What do you think of Zombie setting both the Firefly franchise and The Munsters aside? Share your thoughts on this interview by leaving a comment below.
Zombie doesn’t know what his next movie will be. Right now, he’s just focusing on his music career.