Halloween Ends producer John Carpenter reveals which video game he would like to adapt into a movie. Carpenter reinvented the horror genre with his 1978 proto-slasher Halloween. Over 40 years later, the Halloween franchise continues to slash away, with Halloween Ends set to arrive later in October.
But Halloween was of course just one of Carpenter’s triumphs in the horror and sci-fi genres. 1981 saw the release of Carpenter’s Escape From New York, the post-apocalyptic action film that introduced the iconic character Snake Plissken. Then in 1982 Carpenter unleashed The Thing, a horror film so gruesome it may have been too much for audiences of the day (though it’s now considered a classic). In 1988, Carpenter mashed up horror, sci-fi and political satire to create the much-loved (and eternally relevant) They Live.
Though Carpenter has seemingly retired from making movies now, he remains active as a film composer and producer. And in his spare time, Carpenter has also become an avid gamer, making him even more of a hero to the younger generations who’ve embraced his movies. The subject of games indeed came up during a recent Carpenter interview with Screen Rant, and specifically the game Dead Space, which the director previously mentioned wanting to adapt. See his remarks in the space below:
"Oh yeah, wouldn't that be great to do a movie on that? Sure [I’m still interested], but I don't have anything to do with it, because it's not my project. I believe there's already a producer who wants to do it, and a director, so no one's asked me. But if they did, I would say yes, immediately. It's a really scary project, and I'd love to take it on."
Will John Carpenter Ever Make Another Movie?
The science fiction/horror game Dead Space would indeed seem to be right up Carpenter’s alley as a target for adaptation. However, at this point it’s fair to wonder if Carpenter is even serious about ever making another movie. While he remains active as a composer and producer, the 74-year-old has not directed a film since 2010’s The Ward (a film that is not counted among his classics).
Carpenter obviously could dive back into filmmaking any time he wanted to, but the question is whether he wants to. The director notoriously fought a lot of battles with studios back in the day and seems to harbor a lot of ill-feelings toward the movie industry in general. Given all that baggage, it’s possible Carpenter simply doesn’t want the headaches that would come with trying to get a movie made. It’s also unfortunately true that Carpenter’s last decade-plus of film work was not up to the level of his ‘80s classics, making it seem that he’d largely lost his directorial touch.
While Carpenter fans would certainly embrace any film project he wanted to tackle, it seems a long-shot that he would actually embark on such an endeavor at this point. The former director indeed seems content composing film scores, producing movies like Halloween Ends and generally serving as an elder statesman among horror filmmakers. But in a world where screen icons like Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood and Francis Ford Coppola are still making movies, who’s to say Carpenter couldn’t get behind the camera one more time. It sounds like Dead Space is one project that would definitely inspire him to return.
