Jamie Lee Curtis is set to return to our screens once more as the iconic Laurie Strode, in the newest addition to the Halloween franchise. The slasher heroine has previously appeared in 4 of the movies covering 2 separate timelines. This year’s Halloween movie will be a direct re-telling and sequel to the first movie. Set 40 years later, Laurie Strode and Michael Myers are to battle it out one more time. Although there has been much excitement and anticipation over this installment, there has also been some level of speculation as to why Curtis agreed to appear again, after Halloween: H20 and Halloween: Resurrection.
This question got answered in an interview on the Halloween set with Bloody Disgusting. In answering, Curtis said:
“I’m doing many things, kids are raised and I was on vacation in June when I got this phone call that David wanted to speak to me,” Curtis recalled. “They started to pitch me and I said no, no, just send it to me, and I read it and I thought it was a very clever, modern way of referencing Halloween. I’m sure everyone is coming up with the word; it is not a reboot, it is a re-telling. It’s a very interesting take on the movie because it references Halloween 1 in every way it can, stylistically, characterologically, visually, emotionally; it follows very similar themes but it’s its own movie so it’s a very clever mash-up of the first movie in a re-telling, like a direct sequel. It’s fascinating. When you see what they’ve come up with you’ll be wowed, because it’s a very modern and yet very true movie.”
Curtis also explained her motivation behind returning for each of the films, stating about Halloween II:
“The truth of the matter is I did Halloween 1 and 2 because Halloween 2 picked up exactly where Halloween 1 left off, in that version of the storytelling, and I felt I owed it to the people who loved the original movie.”
After Halloween II, she didn’t want to return to the franchise to avoid getting pigeon-holed and closing herself off to other opportunities outside of the horror/thriller genre. After a long break from the franchise, Curtis went on to explain the origins of Halloween: H20:
“I forgot about it for a long time until H20, [which] came about purely because I was still in show business, John [Carpenter] was still in show business and Debra Hill was still in show business and I called them to have lunch and said hey guys, next year will be twenty years later and how crazy is that? How often does that happen? So the movie was conceived and there was a moment where John was going to direct it but then he had other commitments and I ended up, kind of again, being the only representative. But the idea of [H20] was to kind of complete the story; of course, with the Halloween movies… the word completion has many interpretations. The way I wanted to end that movie was the way we ended the movie. I wanted a concrete ending.”
Then things changed and Halloween: Resurrection was born:
“But of course what we learn, which by the way was not the original intention, was that it was not Michael, that it was an innocent man that Laurie had killed. So what I said to them was, if this is in fact how we are going to conclude the movie, without the audience knowing, then I have to come back for one more movie; for a very short moment to conclude Laurie’s story. I’m not going to make H20 and make it ambiguous. I said I will come in and finish my version of Laurie’s story, whatever year that was, whatever that is. Like that was, for me, the reason I was in Resurrection.”
A “final confrontation with Michael Myers” is promised for Laurie Strode in the official synopsis of the film so lets hope that means Jamie Lee Curtis will finally get the ending that she has longed for, for Laurie.
Written by Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley, under the direction of David Gordon Green, the latest installment hits cinemas on October 19th.
What do you think? Will this be the last we see of Halloween? Let us know all of your thoughts in the comments section!