Halloween director David Gordon Green has revealed that a previous version of the film’s opening scene almost featured the death of a major character in the franchise.
While Donald Pleasence who played the iconic Dr. Loomis in the original film series passed away in 1995, Green revealed to Entertainment Weekly that at one point, the film was going to recreate the ending of the original 1978 classic from John Carpenter. The scene would have featured a young Laurie Strode, along with Pleasence’s Loomis, featuring an alternate perspective of the first Halloween‘s ending (the new film direct sequel to the original, ignore all other installments to the franchise):
“At one point in the script, we had an opening setup that included the end of the original Halloween in a kind of aerial restaged version. Our art director, coincidentally, on this movie, looks exactly like Donald Pleasence. So, we were like, We’ll just get him to do it, and we’ll do this thing, and we’ll recreate it. Like, Who’s so lucky on their own movie set to have a look-alike of the guy from 40 years ago?”
Co-producer Ryan Turek also detailed another alternate opening scene speaking on the most recent episode of the Shock Waves podcast. Turek revealed plans that if realized, would have seen the death of the Loomis character after a struggle with Michael Myers only that version would have conflicted with the ending of the original Halloween:
“The first scripted opening was a re-envisioning of the finale of Halloween. David wanted to f— things up, man. He wanted to just mix things up a little bit. So, initially, he had a scene in which we came in at the end of Halloween, and Loomis sees the screaming kids, comes inside, sees the struggle between Laurie and Michael. Michael puts his mask back on, Loomis shoots him, pushes Michael back through the doorway into the bedroom. Laurie is cowering on the ground, Loomis charges into the bedroom, where Michael gets the upper hand and jumps him. Loomis drops the gun and then Laurie is holding onto the gun, but she’s shaking so much she can’t actually pull the trigger. And then Michael chokes out Loomis, kills him, and then Laurie decides to pull the trigger and knock Michael back. So, we had that, and then…we were trying to figure out how to pull that off…and it was just crazy, you know…And I remember John (Carpenter) read that draft and he was like, ‘Uhhh, why would you want to change that? Why would you want to change my ending?’ And David took that to heart.”
Directed by David Gordon Green from a script co-written by himself, Jeff Fradley and Danny McBride, Halloween stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Will Patton, Virginia Gardner, Miles Robbins, Dylan Arnold, Drew Scheid, and Nick Castle. Here’s the official synopsis:
Laurie Strode comes to her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.
Halloween is now playing.
Source: EW
