page_title: Halloween (2018 film)
section_title: Writing and pre-production
hierarchical_section_title: Halloween (2018 film) / Production / Writing and pre-production
caption_attribution_description: English: David Gordon Green speaking at the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con International in San Diego, California.
context_page_description: Halloween is a 2018 American horror slasher film directed by David Gordon Green and written by Green, Jeff Fradley, and Danny McBride. It is the eleventh installment in the Halloween film series and a direct sequel to the 1978 film of the same name while effecting a retcon of all previous sequels. It stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Nick Castle who reprise their respective roles as Laurie Strode and Michael Myers, with stuntman James Jude Courtney also portraying Myers. The film also stars Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Will Patton, and Virginia Gardner. The plot follows a post-traumatic Laurie Strode who prepares to face Michael Myers in a final showdown on Halloween night, forty years after she survived his killing spree.
  After the release of Rob Zombie's Halloween II, the 2009 sequel to the 2007 remake of the original, two consecutive follow-ups went into development from former rights holder Dimension Films, respectively, but neither achieved fruition. As a result, the studio lost the rights to the intellectual property, which were later obtained by Blumhouse Productions with John Carpenter's involvement.
context_section_description: When John Carpenter, who had co-written the first two Halloween films with Debra Hill and directed the original, signed on as an executive producer in 2016, he described his intention: "Thirty-eight years after the original Halloween, I'm going to help to try to make the 10th sequel the scariest of them all." He discussed his reasoning for revisiting the series for the first time since producing 1982's Halloween III: Season of the Witch in an interview with Rotten Tomatoes, "I talked about the Halloweens for a long time, the sequels — I haven't even seen all of them [...] But finally it occurred to me: Well if I'm just flapping my gums here, why don't I try to make it as good as I can? So, you know, stop throwing rocks from the sidelines and get in there and try to do something positive." When the rights were acquired by Blumhouse, filmmaker Adam Wingard discussed making a new Halloween film, but ultimately dropped out after being sated by an email of encouragement from Carpenter, "I kinda walked away from it like, I just got everything I wanted out of this job. 'This is about as good as it gets.'" On February 9, 2017, David Gordon Green and Danny McBride were announced as handling screenwriting duties, with Green directing and Carpenter advising the project. Carpenter said that he was impressed with the pitch presented by the co-writers, solicited by Jason Blum, proclaiming that "They get it."
  Rather than reboot the series again, they initially chose to focus primarily on continuing the mythology of the first two films when developing the story, with Danny McBride stating, "We all came to the decision that remaking something that already works isn't a good idea. So we just have a reimagining instead." The pitch was created by the writers specifically to present to Carpenter, as they were self-described fans of the original Halloween. The story was eventually fleshed out so that all of the sequels were ignored from the new film's continuity, and the ending of the first film was retconned in what McBride likened to an alternate reality. However, he later said that the film still pays tribute to the other follow-ups, despite sharing no direct continuity, "you know like there's so many different versions, and the timeline is so mixed up, we just thought it would be easier to go back to the source and continue from there. It was nicer than knowing you're working on Halloween 11, it just seemed cooler, 'we're making Halloween 2'. For fans, we pay homage and respect to every Halloween that has been out there." Despite Green and McBride's comedy roots, Halloween was distanced from the comedy genre. McBride further elaborated that "I think there was, like, maybe one joke on the page, but the rest is straight horror." Believing that "good horror movie directors are good directors", Jason Blum hired Green for his perceived "amazing" storytelling. No major steps were taken without Carpenter's approval, including the acceptance of the initial pitch and bringing back actress Jamie Lee Curtis.
  Displeased with Rob Zombie's re-imagining and added backstory of murderer Michael Myers, Carpenter wanted to take the character back to his more mysterious roots, describing him as "a force of nature. He's supposed to be almost supernatural." McBride detailed his approach as humanizing the character, "I think we're just trying to take it back to what was so good about the original. It was just very simple and just achieved that level of horror that wasn't turning Michael Myers into some being that couldn't be killed. I want to be scared by something that I really think could happen. I think it's much more horrifying to be scared by someone standing in the shadows while you're taking the trash out."
  Early on, the script for the film had Laurie's daughter Jamie Lloyd from the original continuity's Halloween 4 and Halloween 5 appear alongside Laurie for the first time. However, subsequent rewrites changed her to 'Karen'. Even before those early plans were publicly known, Danielle Harris, who played Jamie, objected, feeling strongly about Laurie hav
caption: Director and co-writer David Gordon Green
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