Writer in talks for the new Halloween, and it’s not Green or McBride

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Last year's Blumhouse-produced HALLOWEEN sequel (pick up a copy HERE) was made on a budget of around $10 million and went on to earn over $250 million at the global box office, so it's no surprise at all that Blumhouse is moving forward with a follow-up. Especially since director David Gordon Green and his co-writer Danny McBride repeatedly mentioned during interviews that they had ideas for another HALLOWEEN movie – so many ideas that they had thought of making two HALLOWEENs back-to-back.

So it is somewhat surprising to hear that Green and McBride might not be writing the next sequel after all.

According to Collider's Jeff Sneider, who has spoken to multiple sources familiar with the project, the screenwriter in talks to craft the next film about iconic slasher Michael Myers is Scott Teems, who has already turned in a "well-liked treatment".

Teems recently wrote two Stephen King adaptations for Blumhouse, one a new version of FIRESTARTER that has Faith Akin attached to direct and the other an adaptation of the novella THE BREATHING METHOD that is set to be directed by Scott Derrickson. Teems has some directing credits himself, having taken the helm of the 2009 film THAT EVENING SUN and a couple episodes of the TV series Rectify. He also wrote a handful of Rectify episodes and an episode of Narcos: Mexico.

Sneider says it's unclear whether or not Green will be directing the new HALLOWEEN, although he expects that Green and McBride will retain executive producer credits on the sequel. Franchise heroine Jamie Lee Curtis has said that she would come back for another sequel if it was directed by Green, but her contract may say that she can be brought back no matter who's directing it.

Curtis's HALLOWEEN 2018 co-stars Judy Greer and Andi Matichak are expected to be brought back for the next movie as well.

Blumhouse's Jason Blum will be producing the new film alongside Malek Akkad of Trancas International Films and Bill Block of Miramax, with Universal likely to be the distributor.

It's not known whether the companies will be aiming to get the HALLOWEEN sequel into theatres for Halloween 2020, or if they're going to try to get this done quickly so it can drop into the October 18, 2019 release date that has already been reserved for an untitled Blumhouse project.

We'll have to wait and see how this goes… And Teems needs to write that script first.