Before filmmaker Christopher Landon put his own spin on the body-swap movie genre with the recently released horror-comedyFreaky, he staked his claim to the genre withHappy Death Dayand its sequel, both starring Jessica Rothe as Tree, a college student stuck in a time loop with a murderer. Fans have been clamoring forHappy Death Day 3for a long time. During an interview with ET, Landon revealed he is fully ready to begin work onHappy Death Day 3, as long as the studio gets on board.
“I need a truckload of cash, if you could just find that for me, I’ll send you my address, you can just drop it off. I get this question a lot and I know that there’s a huge fan base and there are a lot of people who want to see the conclusion, as I would say, to the trilogy. I think it really comes down to Universal deciding whether they want it or not, only time will tell. We’re ready to make it. Like, I have an outline, I’mready to gowrite the script, [star] Jessica Rothe, the whole cast, everybody’s on board. They all know what the idea is, they love it, so we’ll see.”
TheHappy Death Dayfranchise exists in an increasingly niche entertainment space where it is neither a giant blockbuster series like the MCU orStar Wars, but neither is it a small prestige project from a studio looking to win awards.Happy Death Dayand its sequel were modestly made genre movies with a small, dedicated fanbase, the type of movies that are finding it difficult to get theatrical releases nowadays. Thus,Christopher Landonbelieves the third movie in the franchise would find a better home online.
“I think that everybody wants it, but I think it’s just a logistical challenge right now. And there’s been talk that maybe they would try and make it for their newstreaming service, for Peacock, so I think there’s a real shot that it could eventually happen. And the great thing about the idea is that, and this is a spoiler, it’s not set in the same day that the other two films were set in so it allows us to sort of take our time a little bit and figure it out.”
TheHappy Death Dayseries was produced by Blumhouse Productions, which is known formaking economically priced thrillersand horror movies that generally manage to make a comfortable profit thanks to their collaborations with indie directors willing to work on small budgets. In a past interview, Blumhouse founder Jason Blum had affirmed his studio’s commitment to completing theHappy Death Dayfranchise with a third movie.
“It’s a trilogy. I’ve got to make the third one. Maybe after Freaky we’ll figure it out. Both of us really want to do it. So hopefully we’ll figure it out. That’s a perfect [premium video-on-demand] movie. Universal has this agreement–17 days in the theater. The same as Freaky, 17 days in a theater and then [it] goes to PVOD. We should make Happy Death Day 3 for that system. I mean, if that movie isn’t right for it, I don’t know what is. So that’s what it would be.”
