John Carpenter’s Halloween Ends Comment Means The Movie Is Already A Lie

The Halloween reboot timeline is expected to come to an end with Halloween Ends, but that might not be the end of the franchise, as John Carpenter has already teased that the movie’s title could be a lie. The slasher genre went through its best run in the 1980s, and it has many movies to thank for that, including John Carpenter’s Halloween. The impact of Carpenter’s original Halloween movie was such that it made way for a franchise with different retcons and timelines, two remakes, and different lead characters, though all of them (except Halloween III: Season of the Witch) had Michael Myers as the villain.

Back in 1978, John Carpenter introduced the audience to Michael Myers and Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in Halloween. On October 31, 1963, six-year-old Michael Myers killed his older sister, Judith, for no apparent reason, and so he was sent to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium. Fifteen years later, on October 30, Michael escaped and returned to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, where on Halloween night, he went on a killing spree after stalking Laurie Strode and her friends. Laurie became the only survivor of Michael’s murders in 1978, and after Carpenter’s original movie, the Halloween franchise went in different directions with new targets (such as Laurie’s daughter, Jamie Lloyd) and Rob Zombie’s remakes, but it returned to the original timeline with David Gordon Green’s Halloween (2018), the beginning of the reboot trilogy.

The Halloween reboot trilogy is a direct continuation of the 1978 movie, thus ignoring all the movies that came after it, meaning that in this timeline, Laurie and Michael are not related and Laurie had a daughter named Karen (Judy Greer) and a granddaughter named Allyson (Andi Matichak). The reboot trilogy is coming to an end with Halloween Ends, but it might not be the end of the franchise, as Carpenter has teased that, if it makes enough money, there will be more from Michael Myers.

Will There Be More Halloween Movies After Halloween Ends?

Although the title of Halloween Ends implies that this will be the definitive end of the Halloween franchise, it’s actually more about the Michael Myers and Laurie Strode saga. Without counting Rob Zombie’s Halloween and Halloween II, Michael Myers has been going after Laurie in two different timelines, and she’s the franchise’s Final Girl, so Halloween Ends is intended to be the closing chapter in their shared story. Because of that, there has been speculation about more Halloween movies after Halloween Ends but without Laurie Strode, and Carpenter continues to feed those rumors. Speaking at Pennsylvania’s Steel City Convention in August 2022, Carpenter explained that he didn’t expect his original movie to get a sequel and that “the movie business is ruled by money”, so if Halloween Ends “makes a lot of money”, it wouldn’t be surprising if it was followed by more movies.

Carpenter had previously talked about this same issue in an interview with ComicBook, insisting that if something makes money, studios will find a way to make more and more, which could happen to the Halloween franchise after Halloween Ends, though he also mentioned that David Gordon Green plans to “shut if off, end it” with this third movie. Producer Jason Blum confirmed that they have a three-picture deal, so they have no plans after Halloween Ends, but he “would love to extend” the deal. In an interview with Screen Rant, Blum confirmed that the rights will go back to Malek Akkad after Halloween Ends, so it’s the last movie from them. Halloween Ends, then, will hopefully be the definitive end to the story of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode, but whether the franchise will continue to branch out after that will depend on who owns the rights and what they plan to do with them, but it wouldn’t be surprising if there were more Halloween movies if Halloween Ends succeeds.