Producer Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions says Happy Death Day 3 is being discussed with Christopher Landon, the director of the first two films in the franchise. Blumhouse Productions is known for its horror library, producing hits like Paranormal Activity, Get Out, The Invisible Man, and Us. The company's latest film, The Black Phone starring Ethan Hawke, will be released on June 24 and has already received a bevy of positive reviews.
The Happy Death Day franchise follows Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe), a college student who gets murdered on the night of her birthday. However, she immediately ends up in a time loop and must identify her killer to stop her death. Happy Death Day and its 2019 sequel were well received upon release for their subversion of slasher and time loop tropes, as well as for their humor and scares. Happy Death Day 3 has been in tentative development for some time, with production seemingly stalling after Happy Death Day 2U underperformed at the box office. Since then, many have commented on the possibility of the threequel moving forward without any concrete developments emerging.
In an exclusive interview with Screen Rant while promoting The Black Phone, Blum confirms that he's recently had discussions with Landon about the status of Happy Death Day 3. He indicates there is still plenty of interest between the two of them, so the future seems rather promising. Read Blum's quote below:
I'm glad you did, because guess who I had lunch with yesterday? Mr. Christopher Landon. And guess what we discussed? Happy Death Day 3. We discussed it. I'm not saying we're doing it, but we discussed it. It was very much on the top of our minds. I'm not saying we're doing it, but I'm not saying we're not doing it.
Landon has said previously that a script for Happy Death Day 3 was outlined shortly after Happy Death Day 2U's release, indicating he does have ideas to continue the story. His latest film Freaky also played with subversion of slasher tropes blended with dark comedy and performed well on-demand, suggesting there's still an audience that would be interested in Happy Death Day 3. The franchise has a cult following among slasher fans, and hopefully, enough vocal support from them can push Happy Death Day 3 into active development.
The Happy Death Day films show that an audacious blend of genres is far more interesting to talk about than movies that play it safe, even if the end result isn't entirely consistent. The movies' take on slashers, dark comedy, sci-fi, and satire is an interesting mesh that mainstream films should experiment more with, to see what's possible when the rules of a genre are challenged. There's no doubt Blum wants to make Happy Death Day 3 happen, but fans will have to continue to wait and see if the product has legs.