Last May Blumhouse began their search for a director to take on Halloween. We had been told Mike Flanagan was in the mix, while Adam Wingard tweeted out images that caused the horror community to speculate his involvement. While neither ended up with the gig, Wingard is now confirming that he was within inches of getting behind the camera to bring Michael Myers back to the big screen.

“You know, I almost actually did the Halloween movie that they’re doing,” Wingard told The Movie Crypt while out promoting Death Note, which is now on Netflix. “It almost happened, but the deal just kinda fell apart.

“When I found out those rights were available I was immediately trying to figure out how to get in on that. But ultimately what I realized was I kinda already made my Halloween movie with The Guest. So it felt like it would be retreading on that kind of thing.

“In a way, I still want to do a Halloween movie.”

This isn’t a huge surprise as Wingard is a huge fan of the Halloween franchise, which helped inspire You’re Next and its score.

In a cool additional story, Wingard reveals that John Carpenter gave the thumbs up, and that was enough for him to feel complete:

“I actually got an email, in confidence, where Carpenter was basically… He actually gave them the thumbs up for me. And I kinda walked away from it like, I just got everything I wanted out of this job, you know. Like I just want approval from dad. And I walked away like, ‘This is about as good as it gets.'”

Currently, David Gordon Green is penning the new Halloween script with Danny McBride (Alien: Covenant), although it’s been pretty quiet as of late. With the real Halloween approaching, we’re expecting to hear an official update soon enough.