‘Halloween’ TV Series: Michael Myers Heading To The Small Screen?
Halloween ran out of time at Dimension Films, and now one of the most famous properties in horror is a free agent looking for a home.
But a new report from Fangoria has indicated that fans may not be getting a new Halloween movie, but rather an entire limited run television series.
The thinking is that the film series has such a twisted and convoluted timeline that attempting to revamp it in yet another film would be too challenging for modern audiences to understand.
Therefore, a Halloween television series would allow producers to start over in a new medium, and free from the constraints of the John Carpenter original, its immediate sequels, H20 — the reboot-sequel from 1998 that pretended Halloweens 4, 5, and 6, never existed, and the Rob Zombie remake and remake-sequel.
It would be an easy way to make that break, and would make a lot of sense when viewed against the current television climate.
For starters, the series could get away with R-rated content on television, especially if it went with a platform like Netflix or AMC.
Secondly, it could have the chance to tell some really compelling stories filled with interesting characters, who would only heighten the sense of fear and dread emanating from Michael Myers as you would know that only a handful could survive from one season to the next.
That means a lot of getting attached, then wincing in horror as your new favorites meet a bloody end.
Fangoria‘s report is hardly what one could call set in stone. The horror news site is the first to admit, noting that the information comes from an unnamed filmmaker source.
Here’s what reporter Ken W. Hanley had to say about it.
“With European Film Market wrapping last week, FANGORIA received word from a filmmaker who wished to remain anonymous that the newly available franchise may have skipped EFM in order to pursue a small screen alternative. While these reports are unconfirmed and should be taken with a grain of salt, our source says that the producers of the HALLOWEEN franchise have recently begun discussions with potential network representatives to bring Michael Myers to television. However, one shouldn’t expect HALLOWEEN to be the next WALKING DEAD: our source has said the television reboot would be a ‘limited series event,’ with the option being restricted to a 3-to-5 season commitment akin to Guillermo del Toro’s TV adaptation of THE STRAIN.”
If the rumor does turn out to be true, Halloween fans longing for deeper storytelling will be grateful. The series has suffered for several installments, relying on over-the-top kills, subpar acting, and almost nonexistent scripts.
On more than one occasion, filmmakers in the series have painted themselves into a corner so that subsequent films would have to ignore or gloss over past events in order to make the current stories work.
It started going downhill after the original Halloween II, which brought in the plot twist of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) being Michael Myers’ sister.
While it worked in the confines of that one film, it effectively sapped Myers of all the enigmatic qualities that made him such a scary guy in the first film.
From there, additional filmmakers and screenwriters doubled down on the family stuff until you no longer believed that Michael Myers was this fearful thing that could at any time be unleashed on Anytown USA.
Instead of being a realistic personification of the boogeyman, he became a cartoon character getting chopped, blown up, bludgeoned, and beheaded, only to live again.
A Halloween TV series could be the chance to correct that. The question is: will they?
[Image via Halloween VI Productions]
