Movies
‘Trick ‘r Treat 2’ Update Directly from Michael Dougherty
Yesterday, I posted an interview I did with Michael Dougherty, director of Trick ‘r Treat and Krampus, and the heads of AtmosFX, who will be bringing Sam to several homes as a digital Halloween decoration. During the production of that product, Dougherty was thrilled to see Sam as, “…I haven’t seen him “alive” in a long time.”
That reunion begs the question when a return is in order as fans have been clamoring for Trick ‘r Treat 2 news for a long time. And in an interview with Slashfilm, Dougherty addressed that very topic, although not much new has been added to the conversation.
I’m going to speak carefully about that [Laughs], because the moment I utter a word about the sequel, everybody starts salivating. It is very much my intention to make the sequel. Legendary is very committed to making the movie. Creatively, it’s in process. When it actually happens, I don’t know. But, hopefully, stuff like this — the digital decorations, the comic books, the merchandise, and what have you — will tide people over and I can finally get around to making it. Nothing would make me happier than returning to that universe. Like, I miss Sam. When we were shooting these vignettes, I was getting a little bit emotional because I would love nothing more than to hang out with Sam again for a year or two, bringing him back to the big screen.
While fans may rue the long wait we’ve been experiencing between the original and an eventual sequel, that delay may very well elevate the story into new territories and give it new stories to address.
I think it’d be great to make it a trilogy, at least. So fingers crossed. For me, I think every film should explore a different aspect of Halloween. I felt like the first film was the very traditional, suburban Halloween that we all have some memory of. But as I’ve grown up over the years, I’ve lived everywhere from Columbus, Ohio to New York to L.A., and I find that the holiday is very different depending on where you live. Or even time periods. I don’t see why we should be limited to just present day stories. Halloween is an amazing holiday because it evolves depending on where you live and the time period.
Dougherty took fans for a spin in early July when a picture he posted from the AtmosFX filming sessions convinced many, yours truly included, that the sequel was already filming. Still, we’re getting these awesome Halloween decorations!
Universal has been having a hell of a time getting their Universal Monsters brand back on a better path in the wake of the Dark Universe collapsing, with four movies thus far released in the years since The Mummy attempted to get that interconnected universe off the ground.
First was Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, to date the only post-Mummy hit for the Universal Monsters, followed by The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Renfield, and now Abigail. The latter three films have attempted to bring Dracula back to the screen in fresh ways, but both Demeter and Renfield severely underperformed at the box office. And while Abigail is a far better vampire movie than those two, it’s unfortunately also struggling to turn a profit.
Where does the Universal Monsters brand go from here? The good news is that Universal and Blumhouse have once again enlisted the help of Leigh Whannell for their upcoming Wolf Man reboot, which is howling its way into theaters in January 2025. This is good news, of course, because Whannell’s Invisible Man was the best – and certainly most profitable – of the post-Dark Universe movies that Universal has been able to conjure up. The film ended its worldwide run with $144 million back in 2020, a massive win considering the $7 million budget.
Given the film was such a success, you may wondering why The Invisible Man 2 hasn’t come along in these past four years. But the wait for that sequel may be coming to an end.
Speaking with the Happy Sad Confused podcast this week, The Invisible Man star Elisabeth Moss notes that she feels “very good” about the sequel’s development at this point in time.
“Blumhouse and my production company [Love & Squalor Pictures]… we are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” Moss updates this week. “And I feel very good about it.”
She adds, “We are very much intent on continuing that story.”
At the end of the 2020 movie, Elisabeth Moss’s heroine Cecilia Kass uses her stalker’s high-tech invisibility suit to kill him, now in possession of the technology that ruined her life.
Stay tuned for more on The Invisible Man 2 as we learn it.
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