Sorry, horror fans but rumors ofHappy Death Day 3have been greatly exaggerated. This, according to the franchise creator and director, Christopher Landon, who has declared that recent reports of the movie being in development are fake news. And this isn’t a coy, “it’s not in development yet” (wink wink) sort of thing. Landon has poured a whole lot of cold water on the situation and hasn’t offered much hope for the future. That is, unless Netflix wants to step in.
A recent report that was making the rounds suggested that Blumhouse Productions was in development onHappy Death Day 3. For those who saw Happy Death Day 2U, that wouldn’t seem to be all that surprising. But for those who paid attention to the box office, it maybe seemed at least a little suspicious. In any case,Christopher Landontook to Twitter to set the record straight. Here’s what he had to say about it.
“Since I keep reading stuff about it, I’ll say it loud:There is no Happy Death Day 3 in development. It’s just a rumor…unlessNetflixwants to pony-up and finish this trilogy, it just ain’t happening.”
The first Happy Death Day, released in 2017, essentially played likeGroundhog Day, but with a slasher movie twist. It grossed a very impressive $125 million worldwide, working from a budget of less than $5 million. Happy Death Day 2U, on the flipside, went hard on the sci-fi and grossed just $64 million globally, while costing $9 million to produce. It surely still turned a profit, but it’s clear the returns were very diminishing. Blumhouse, from a business perspective, doesn’t have much reason to think that completing the trilogy would be a financially sound thing to do.
But what about this Netflix business that Christopher Landon mentions? Is that just wishful thinking? Or is that a real possibility? While we don’t know specifically what Netflix is looking at spending some of their many millions of dollars on, they do have a working relationship with Blumhouse. They’ve released movies such asHush,CamandMercy Blackfor the studio in the past. So it’s certainly not impossible and the business relationship does exist. Does that mean the streaming service will shell out $10 million or more for what was set up as an ambitious sequel? Maybe. Maybe not. But there is at least a sliver of hope.
Spoilers for those who haven’t seen Happy Death Day 2U, butJessica Rothe led the first two movies as Tree. As we saw at the end of the sequel, Christopher Landon intended to turn the plot on its head. With the government now in possession of the technology that allowed for the day to be reset repeatedly, they intended to use Rachel Matthews' Danielle Bouseman as something of a guinea pig to further explore the science behind the device. The story is there. Your move, Netflix. Feel free to check out the post fromChristopher Landon’s Twitterbelow.
