The original treatment for Halloween: H20 included references to the Jamie Lloyd character. The Kevin Williamson treatment attempted to make sense of the contradictory story threads created by the different timelines.
After the success of Scream in 1996, writer Williamson, creator of the recent Tell Me A Story, found himself in an ideal position. Many of his spec scripts were being produced and television networks began courting him for potential show ideas. During this period, Williamson was approached by Dimension, the production company that held the rights to the Halloween franchise. Jamie Lee Curtis was open to making a new chapter, a film that would also coincide with the 20th anniversary of the original film. Williamson was originally hired to write the screenplay, which was supposed to tie all the films together. The screenwriter was a big Halloween fan and began writing an extensive treatment attempting to retcon Laurie’s death in Halloween IV.
In Dwight Little’s fourth installment, which brought back boogeyman Michael Myers, the action focuses on his niece Jamie Lloyd. Unable to get Curtis to reprise her iconic role, her character was killed off, leaving her daughter an orphan. Myers’ new motivation is to hunt her down and killer her – a story arc that played out, rather clumsily, through the next two films. Williamson was in the tight spot of having to offer a credible scenario for Laurie faking her death and abandoning her child. The original title, Halloween 7: The Revenge of Laurie Strode, may have hinted in the direction that it was headed.
Original Halloween: H20 Storyline Included Jamie Lloyd
In an early draft of the treatment, Laurie, now Keri Tate, the headmistress of a boarding school, was confronted with the events regarding her daughter. During one of Tate’s classes a student gave a report on the Myers’ story – including his pursuit of Jamie and her eventual murder. In the scene, after the student finishes their report, Tate runs to the bathroom and throws up. Attempting to keep the continuity proved to be too convoluted and distracting – in order to make the narrative as clean as possible, the Jamie Loyd saga was put aside. Before the first draft of the script was written, it was decided that Halloween 7, soon retitled Halloween: H20, would pick up after the events of Halloween II (1981).
Though he didn’t end up writing the screenplay, Williamson did create the framework that became the finished film. His involvement was pivotal to the end result – as well as the crafting of the ending, which had to please both Curtis and long-time producer Moustapha Akkad. The Dawson’s Creek creator was responsible for the paramedic body switch of Myers – the concept that kept him alive for Halloween: Resurrection. While Jamie Lloyd’s story did not return in any of the follow-up films, actress Danielle Harris, who played Lloyd in Halloween IV & V was cast in Rob Zombie’s 2007 Halloween remake. Harris, who was most recently in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, played Annie in both the reboot and the 2009 sequel.