Cowriter Danny McBride has confirmed that the 2018 Halloween sequel/reboot ignores all of the previous Halloween films, save for John Carpenter's original installment. With the finale of HBO's Vice Principals just having aired, McBride's main focus is now on the long-teased revival of Carpenter's 1978 slasher classic Halloween. The new film will continue the story of Laurie Strode (a returning Jamie Lee Curtis) evading the murderous attentions of the white-masked Michael Myers. McBide has now spoken about the treatment that he wrote for the film with director David Gordon Green, and confirmed the timeline for the movie in relation to the larger franchise.

After Rob Zombie's Halloween II in 2009, there were several years worth of rumors regarding another reboot of the franchise, but this only came to fruition after Blumhouse got involved along with the confirmation of McBride and Green's collaboration on the project. With a long stint in development hell, studio head Jason Blum went as far to announce that he would 'cut his hand off' if the film was not completed by October 2018. Horror fans were delighted to hear that Carpenter would be scoring the movie and remain onboard as the executive producer. Even better news was the confirmation that Curtis would reprise her role as the unlucky Laurie from the very first movie, seemingly ignoring her demise seen in 2002's Halloween: Resurrection. She is also said to now have a daughter, who will be reportedly played by Judy Greer.

Although it was understood that the movie was being written as a direct sequel to the first film, there was some conjecture as to whether it would acknowledge any of the events of 1981's Halloween II, which was set mostly in a hospital and revealed Laurie as being Michael's estranged sister. However, in an interview with Yahoo! Movies, McBride has fully clarified how the new film will relate to the original;

"We're kind of ignoring all the films past the first one, It picks up after the first one, but it's sort of an alternate reality. It's as if the first Halloween ended in a slightly different way."

Laurie hiding from Michael Myers in Halloween

This confirms a previous statement made by Carpenter, who said Halloween (2018) will only acknowledge his original film and have no connections to any of the sequels. The 'alternate reality' comment is intriguing, as is the reference to a changed ending. The original movie's final shot was of Michael tumbling out of a window, before his body disappears. Will this new sequel provide some substance or extra details to those final moments, or with Laurie's survival of the incident? With Halloween II being completely erased from continuity, it also provides a clean slate for showing Michael's motives and abilities, with McBride already having promised that he will not have any supernatural qualities.

McBride is well aware of the legacy that he has taken on, and the involvement of Carpenter and Curtis has been of paramount importance to him for the project. He's also at pains to assure longtime fans that he doesn't want to disappoint them:

"We are diehard fans of Halloween. We're watching all the sequels and where things have taken left turns here and there that maybe bites for fans, and at least trying to deliver what we would have wanted to see... I think you should be very scared. I mean, this isn't a comedy at all... So hopefully it gets in people's heads and keeps them up late at night". 

MORE: Laurie & Michael Shouldn't Be Siblings in Halloween (2018)

We look forward to the 2018 release of the film, and hope that the film lives up to all the expectations that the fans are wanting from the return of the original boogeyman.

Source: Yahoo! Movies

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