10 Secrets From The Set Of John Carpenter's Halloween 1978
8. John Carpenter Knew A Thing Or Two About Branding
John Carpenter's salary was quite low for the film. In fact, he was only paid $10,000 for directing, writing and scoring. He was promised an additional 10% of the profits and full creative control by producer Irwin Yabblans if he could deliver the film on time, which he did.
However, there was another condition he asked for.
Producer Tommy Lee Wallace described Carpenter as being ahead of his time. He wanted to set himself apart from other, potentially anonymous directors of the genre. He organised for his name to be up front and centre in the credits, so that every time someone looked at the name of the film, they would be seeing his name as well.
And here we are still talking about it more than 40 years later. Clearly, the man knew what he was doing.