In last year’s horror hit Halloween, the role of masked killer Michael Myers (a.k.a. “The Shape”) was mostly played by stuntman-actor James Jude Courtney. But director David Gordon Green found space in the film for a Myers-portraying cameo by Nick Castle, who played the part in John Carpenter’s original 1978 slasher classic before going on to direct 1984’s The Last Starfighter and 1995’s Major Payne, among other movies.
Now, Castle has revealed that he will be returning to play Myers again in Halloween Kills, one of the recently-announced sequels to Green’s Halloween.
“You can’t kill the boogeyman,” Castle wrote Thursday on Twitter. “Just heard the news. I’m coming back.”
The message was accompanied by a doctored image from the video that announced the sequels in which Myers is shown attending to a barbecue under the title “Halloween Kills.”
In a subsequent, clarifying, tweet, Castle seemed to confirm that Courtney would once again be playing Myers for most of the film.
“I’ll be returning, but you know Big Game James still got the torch!” he wrote. “More later.”
Last year, Castle revealed how this aspirant filmmaker wound up portraying one of the most famous movie villains of all-time.
“Well, that had to do with the fact that I’ve been friends with John Carpenter since film school,” Castle told EW. “We both went to USC film department and did movies there. In fact, we were on a crew that won an Academy Award for a short [1970’s The Resurrection of Broncho Billy]. We just stayed close friends through the early part of his career. And then, when he was mounting the movie, they actually were going to shoot a large part of it near my house. I was in Laurel Canyon, and the houses — the hero street, so to speak, at the end of the movie — they’re off Sunset Blvd., near Laurel Canyon Blvd.
“So, I said, ‘John, I’m going to come down to the set and hang out,’” Castle continued. “‘I want to be a director too, so this will be pretty good practice for me to take a look.’ And he said, ‘Well, okay, then put on the mask, and then you’ll always be there, and that’s your reason to be on the set.’ And I said, ‘Okay, good.’ That was it. It was as simple as that.”
It was announced earlier this month that last year’s Halloween will be followed by two sequels, Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends. Both films are being directed by Green, from scripts written by Green and McBride, among others.
Jason Blum, head of Blumhouse Productions, and a producer on the Halloween franchise, confirmed in a tweet “the gang is ALL back” for the next installments. That includes star Jamie Lee Curtis and Carpenter, who composed the soundtrack to the 2018 film, with his son Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies.
“It ain’t over till the fat lady sings,” Curtis tweeted of the news. “Well, my friends and fans….I’m just WARMING UP.”
Halloween Kills will be released Oct. 16, 2020, and Halloween Ends will be released Oct. 15, 2021. The films are a collaboration between Blumhouse, Universal Pictures, Trancas International Films, and Miramax.
Watch the sequels’ announcement video above.
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