The original Halloween grossed $70 million on a $325,000 budget in 1978. Though not as successful, Halloween II grossed $25.5 million on a $2.5 million budget. Series creators John Carpenter and Debra Hill agreed to produce Halloween III... but with a different take that would have nothing to do with the first two. Though the first two Halloween movies are slasher films about the masked killer Michael Myers, Carpenter and Hill envisioned turning Halloween into an annual anthology series of different Halloween-related stories. Halloween III: Season of the Witch ended up being about mysterious masks and their connection to ancient evil magic, with no storyline connection to the prior films. Carpenter and Hill underestimated the popularity of Michael Myers, and Halloween III made much less at the box office than Halloween II. It's no surprise that 1988's Halloween 4 was subtitled "The Return of Michael Myers" and featured... well, I'm sure you can guess.