10 Things You Didn't Know About John Carpenter

By Padraig Cotter /

4. He Hates The Halloween Series

A lot of creators would be happy to create a franchise they could pump money out of, but not JC. Despite the ambiguous ending of Halloween, he never wanted a sequel and was contractually forced to write one. He got drunk while writing it to gain the necessary inspiration, and came up with the Laurie Strode being Michael€™s sister twist out of desperation. He almost made sure to kill Michael off at the end, so more sequels with the character could be made. Of course, it didn€™t end there; after the Myers-free Halloween III bombed the studio brought back bogeyman, but Carpenter immediately bailed. Despite being happy to receive a cheque every time a new Halloween is made (since he created the character and theme) he feels the sequels are creatively bankrupt copies of the original, and there€™s no more story to tell. He was almost lured back twice, though; he offered to direct Halloween: H20 if he was paid $10 million, and was willing to direct a versus movie with Michael and Pinhead called Helloween so he could work with Clive Barker, but the project was canned.