Doctor Sleep and The Haunting of Hill House director Mike Flanagan almost helmed the 2018 reboot of Halloween, but things didn't work out. John Carpenter, the original creator of Halloween in 1978, is without a doubt one of the most revered directors in horror history. He boasts multiple classics on his resume, and even his initial bombs often become cult classics later on. While Flanagan certainly isn't on Carpenter's level yet, he'll certainly get there if he keeps turning out consistently good horror.
In the opinion of many, Flanagan has yet to make a truly bad film, with even the least of his works so far, Before I Wake, being more of an intriguing misfire than a waste of time. In 2018, Flanagan expanded his talents to the small screen, creating, producing, directing, and co-writing Netflix's highly acclaimed The Haunting of Hill House streaming TV series. Netflix was so pleased with the reception to Hill House that they now have Flanagan working on multiple additional projects for their service, including a sequel series called The Haunting of Bly Manor.
Being an accomplished filmmaker and a noted horror lover, it's unsurprising that Flanagan was considered to direct Halloween's 2018 reboot. What's actually more surprising is that he didn't get the job.
Halloween 2018: Why Mike Flanagan Didn't Direct The Movie
Around the time Doctor Sleep was released in theaters in 2019, Mike Flanagan revealed that before the duo of David Gordon Green and Danny McBride were hired to make the Halloween reboot we all know, Blumhouse Productions head Jason Blum contacted Flanagan about the potential project. Blum told Flanagan that if he was interested in directing Halloween, they could probably work out a deal. The problem was, Flanagan spent a few days trying to formulate a pitch for the reboot, but found that to be quite difficult.
In fact, he only came up with a single potential element in all the time he spent brainstorming: making Dr. Loomis a female character. Naturally, Blum moved on with his search for a director, and Flanagan says that was probably for the best. When thinking about it later, Flanagan realized that his 2016 film Hush - which featured a masked killer menacing a deaf woman in her home for no reason other than he wanted to - was basically already what his take on Halloween would've been. Looking back, it's not hard to see the similarities there, as Hush is almost an even simpler version of Halloween, in which Michael Myers stalks and attempts to kill Laurie Strode for the length of an entire film. Suffice to say, things have turned out well for both Halloween and Flanagan anyway.
