Danny McBride keeps saying the right things about the upcoming Halloween movie he is working on with David Gordon Green. He continues to insist that it isn't a reboot, but without seeing anything from it yet, it is hard to know what to call it. Despite a little bit of mysteriousness surrounding the movie in that sense, McBride is keeping the story close to his vest. He has revealed when the movie is going to start shooting, though, which is very encouraging.
The actor/writer/producer recently appeared on the Jim Norton & Sam Roberts Show on Sirius XM. Danny McBride was promoting Alien: Covenant, which is sort of his first foray into horror and features him stepping out of what we know him for, which has mostly been comedy. But he has been a horror fan for a very long time, which led his frequent collaborator and college buddy David Gordon Green, who is directing Halloween Returns, to reach out to Danny McBride to co-write the movie with him. During the chat, he revealed that they are still working on the screenplay and that the movie will shoot this fall. Here's what he had to say.
"We've been cracking away on that. We're gonna shoot it this fall."
When it was announced that the creative team behind Pineapple Express was going to be doing the long-awaited Halloween revival, there was a bit of surprise, as one might expect. However, since the announcement, Danny McBride has been saying all of the right things and, while he reiterated statements that he has made in the past, he continued to say more things that sound very good about this new take on Halloween and Michael Myers in the interview.
"It's not a reboot, it's not gonna be a rehash. It's a continuation of Michael Myers, where we're choosing to continue it from, you'll have to see when the movie comes out. I'd already seen all these movies but I've really been studying them now, and just thinking about all the people that have been hired to make a Michael Myers movie. Just trying to avoid any mistakes that those people might've made. The first Halloween is scary as shit. And the second Halloween is scary, but not as scary. And then from there, it isn't as scary. And I really think that what happens with it is that he basically becomes Frankenstein. No matter what anyone hits him with, he's not gonna die. There's no suspense. We're just trying to play with that. Make him real. Not make him real by giving him some crazy backstory either. Just getting back to the basics. Even the moment that they made Laurie and Michael Myers siblings, it also makes it not quite as scary. So all that kind of stuff to us... those are the things that took an amazing idea and took it somewhere it wasn't quite as effective."
The many Halloween sequels did a great many things to the mythology of Michael Myers, with mixed results. It sounds like McBride and Green are going to largely wipe that slate clean, specifically pointing out that making he and Laurie siblings as something they are going to avoid. The most effective Halloween movies were simple, and it sounds like that is what they are going for this time around.
The Halloween "rehash" is said to mostly be taking the mythology from the first two movies in the franchise, with David Gordon Green directing and Danny McBride co-writing and producing, alongside series creator John Carpenter. With the movie shooting this fall, we should be hearing some casting updates and possibly some plot info in the coming months. The new Halloween is set for release on October 19, 2018.