Why The ‘Halloween’ Franchise Is Even Harder To Kill Than Michael Myers

After a nine-year hiatus, the longest in the history of the franchise, Halloween is back with a brand new installment. The new film, simply titled Halloween, is a major change of pace for the franchise as it marks a return to basics. Rather than continue the two-film reboot series that began in 2009, or continue the original's eight-film opus, Halloween 2018 ignores the entire franchise save for the 1978 original, acting as a sequel to that film. So with that being the case, will there be another Halloween sequel? Or is this new film meant to close out the 40-year-old franchise once and for all?

If you're a fan of the Halloween franchise, you know this series has had more false deaths than Michael Myers himself. After the first two films, a reboot of sorts was attempted with the Michael Myers-free Halloween III: Season of the Witch in 1982. The film wasn't popular, and it would be another six years before Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers got the franchise going again. Halloween 5 arrived the following year, but negative reception again led to a lengthy hiatus — Halloween 6 didn't debut in theaters until 1995. That film took the series way off the rails into fantasyland, so a soft reboot acting as a new third installment of the franchise in place of Halloween III was unveiled in 1998 in Halloween H20. That film got its own sequel four years later with Halloween: Resurrection, a movie that marked the end of the original franchise after 24 years. But Halloween didn't stay dead for long.

The series was completely rebooted with 2007's Halloween, a reimagining of the original film. That was followed up by its own sequel in 2009, Halloween 2, which until now had acted as the franchise's closer. Now, nine years later, Halloween returns with... Halloween. So now that we're up to speed, what does this new film mean from the future of the franchise going forward? Are more sequels planned, or is the new movie simply meant to be a more appropriate closer to the franchise?

Although it may seem like the new film is meant to act as a proper swan song for the franchise, righting the perceived wrongs of the many sequels, that's not necessarily the case. This is Hollywood we're talking about here, so if Halloween proves successful at the box office, then you can bet the franchise will go on. The new film is produced by Jason Blum, who has made a name for himself in recent years as the king of low budget, big earning horror franchises, and he's likely looking to give Halloween the same treatment. "I'd love to do sequels, and I hope we do a sequel and we will do a sequel if [Halloween] performs," Blum told Forbes in September. "We're not going to decide if we do a sequel or not until we see the reaction to this movie. But I really hope to make it."

Early reviews for the new film have been very solid, and the box office forecast is looking good, so at this point a sequel seems like a sure thing. 40 years and 11 movies later, the Halloween franchise shows no signs of slowing down, meaning fans can almost definitely expect Michael Myers to rise again in the near future.