Deadline Hollywood’s Nikke Finke broke the story yesterday that production on Halloween 3D has been shut down by the Weinstein company – a report that has been confirmed by several other horror film sites around the blogosphere.

The “official” explanation for the shutdown is that the powers that be (Harvey and his brother Bob Weinstein) felt that production on the second sequel to Rob Zombie’s two-part Halloween reboot was moving much too fast, with the first draft of the script having landed in their laps less than a week ago, and production on the film set to start in November, to wrap by January.

Bloody Disgusting received confirmation that Patrick Lussier, the My Bloody Valentine 3D director and editor of numerous Wes Craven films has officially signed on to direct Halloween 3D.  You can exhale now.  Lussier’s former colleague Todd Farmer (who wrote My Bloody Valentine 3D) has signed on to pen the newest installment of the Halloween franchise.  So if you loved My Bloody Valentine 3D, chances are you’re all set for Halloween 3D (brought to you by Dimension Films).

To recap my earlier post on Halloween 3D, this will be the eleventh film in the horror franchise that has grossed more than $300MM worldwide, was started under the direction of John Carpenter and most recently rebooted by Rob Zombie.  The franchise has largely (although not exclusively) followed psycho killer Michael Myers through his Halloween night killing sprees.

Patrick Lussier, director of My Bloody Valentine 3D and editor of a ton of Wes Craven movies, (including the Scream series) has been apparently chatting with Dimension Films about directing the upcoming Halloween 3D, which is supposedly due out in the summer of 2010.

Rob Zombie (The Devil’s Rejects) had taken on directing responsibilities for the 2007  Halloween reboot and Halloween II which is in theaters now. Bob Weinstein (co-head of the Weinstein Co., parent corporation of Dimension Films) recently let it be known that Zombie won’t be directing Halloween 3D, despite the fact that the film is set to pick up right where Halloween II left off.

In case you are wondering, NO, you aren’t reading a title with a twist. It would appear that Rob Zombie is actually done with the Halloween franchise after his latest attempt, Halloween 2, hits theaters August 28, 2009.

In the quick video interview below with MTV, Zombie was asked if he would ever consider doing Halloween 3. Before the interviewer could even get the sentence out Zombie responded: