There’s a moment in the first trailer for Halloween, not long after we see Michael Myers in Haddonfield’s maximum security mental asylum, when Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) admits that, for 40 years, she’s been praying for the deranged killer to escape.
Why, you ask? Well, so she can kill him and bring an end to the reign of terror that began with John Carpenter’s original classic way back in 1978. But whereas the first Halloween left Michael’s fate on a cliffhanger, David Gordon Green and co-writer Danny McBride have dreamed up a retcon of their own so that The Shape winds up in police custody after killing three innocent teenagers on Halloween night four decades ago. And that’s where Blumhouse’s sequel begins.
But while the new trailer makes it clear that the legendary scream queen is now armed and dangerous, actress Jamie Lee Curtis almost didn’t return for another round. It’s not that she was disinterested, mind you, just that she needed some convincing and that came in the form of Jake Gyllenhaal.
According to Variety, the two are close family friends, with Curtis even calling the actor her “unofficial godson.” And so, it was thanks to Gyllenhaal’s time working with David Gordon Green on Stronger that led to Jamie Lee Curtis deciding to sign on for Halloween, as Jake told her that it was one of the best experiences of his career.
After that, the actress agreed to take a meeting with Green and the two immediately hit it off. Speaking with Variety, Curtis even said that he reminded her of Carpenter in some ways. “They’re both laid back and don’t take themselves too seriously,” she said. Whether that’ll translate into this new Halloween being on par with the original remains to be seen, but everything we’ve been hearing so far has been incredibly positive and we can’t wait to see Laurie take on Michael once more this October.
