The Reboot That SAVED The Halloween Franchise

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]When it comes to the Halloween franchise, we know there are many different timelines. There are multiple avenues that you can take to get to your desired destination. For some, it's annoying. For others, it's one of the reasons they love the franchise. Amidst all of these different timelines, there were three massive reboots of this franchise. Which one was the best and set the franchise up for success long-term?

[00:00:31]>> [music] >> Hey, what's up everybody? Nick here, and today I want to talk to you guys about Halloween. And more specifically, I want to talk to you about every reboot in the Halloween franchise, specifically three of them. You could make the case that Halloween 4 was a semi-reboot because it didn't have Laurie Strode, but it was a direct continuation of those first two movies. You could even make the case in some ways Halloween 3 is, but let's be honest, it's not. When it comes to the Halloween movies, there are three reboots, at least in my opinion. The first one is Halloween H20. Now, yes, this does continue the story after Halloween and Halloween 2, much like Halloween 4 does. However, for the first time in the franchise's history, it is ignoring previous sequels. Again, someone's going to be like, "Well, Halloween 3 did as well." Come on, guys.

[00:01:27]Halloween H20 removed all of the fat from Halloween's 4 through 6 and decided that those movies didn't exist. We were rebooting, bringing Jamie Lee Curtis back as Laurie Strode, and picking up 20 years later. Then, in 2007, we had Rob Zombie's Halloween, which was a remake, but it totally rebooted the franchise as well. Nothing happened before that movie, at least canonically, in that timeline. This was a brand new start.

[00:01:54]And then we got Halloween 2018, which was yet another reboot bringing back Jamie Lee Curtis. Except this time they only continued after the original Halloween, writing out Halloween 2 and Halloween H2O out of continuity. Now all three of these movies have a lot of things in common, and they also differ in many ways. This video is for me to pick which one I think was the most successful at rebooting the franchise, and also determine which one is more responsible for setting up the franchise for long-term success. So beginning with Halloween H2O, it's very important to talk about how big of a hit this movie was at the time, and why this series at the time needed to be rebooted.

[00:02:36]Halloween's 4, 5, and 6 are a fan favorite. The Thorn trilogy, as it has been dubbed, is one that many fans are pining for them to return to now that Halloween Ends has seemingly ended Laurie Strode again, but this time for good. However, that was not a super successful time for the franchise. See, while Jason and Freddy were carving up the box office, Michael Myers wasn't really. He was largely dormant in the '80s, and even when Halloween 4 came out and was a hit by Trancas's standards, it was not a hit compared to some of the other titans at the time. And it was not a critical darling. However, fans seemed to be pretty happy with this movie, and they were happy to see Michael Myers back because largely I think that's what they wanted. But as the movies would go on, 5 and 6 would make less and less money at the box office, they would be panned universally by critics, and eventually fans alike. So H2O was necessary at the time because nobody was going to see Halloween movies anymore.

[00:03:35]In order to keep this franchise going, they had to go back to the roots. What made it most successful from the very beginning. Love or hate the Laurie Strode timeline, let's be honest here.

[00:03:46]Halloween has been at its best critically and commercially when Jamie Lee Curtis has been in the lead role as Laurie Strode. And Halloween H2O was a massive hit. It was actually the most successful movie since the original Halloween at the box office. And it got the best reviews in the franchise since the original Halloween. Unfortunately, that high was short-lived because Resurrection would come out a few years after that. It would make half of what H2O did, get panned by critics and audiences alike, and Halloween was left up creek without a paddle yet again. So, enter Rob Zombie. In the age of remakes where every classic horror movie that you knew and loved was getting a fresh reinvention. And Rob Zombie was a rising name. Not just for who he was in music, but he had just come out with a movie two years prior that was actually pretty well reviewed and pretty successful. Now, it's fair to say there were a lot of people that were not huge fans of this idea. This remake craze really pissed off a lot of purists of some of these classic films, and Rob Zombie being the director for a Halloween remake definitely got the internet talking. And it was not overwhelmingly positive. However, that wouldn't end up mattering because Rob Zombie's Halloween was the biggest Halloween film aside from the original adjusting for inflation. It also held the Labor Day opening weekend record for nearly 15 years at the domestic box office. Yes, Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween was the biggest Labor Day movie for over a decade. Now, I should point out that critics were not fans of this movie, and fans were pretty evenly split on you either loved it or you hated it, and there wasn't much in between. But, Halloween was roaring again. So, naturally, he would make a sequel. And just like Resurrection before it, it would make half of what the first movie did, and it would be panned by critics and audiences alike.

[00:05:39]Then came Blumhouse, and they said, "We need to remove everything out of continuity in this franchise. Nothing else happened except the original Halloween. We'll bring back Jamie Lee and many of the original players and we will just start fresh. And again, at the time it was probably the right decision and financially it definitely was because Halloween 2018 would not only go on to be the biggest Halloween film, it is the highest grossing slasher movie of all time and it would spawn a trilogy.

[00:06:08]But just like the two reboots before it, every subsequent film would make less money at the box office and would piss more fans and critics off. And now we sit here today in 2026 not knowing what the future of the Halloween franchise is. So let's work backward from there.

[00:06:24]If we're talking strictly financially, what was the most successful Halloween reboot? It is unequivocally Halloween 2018. It got two sequels while the previous reboots only got one each. It made way more money than all of those previous movies and every sequel to Halloween 2018 made more money than these reboots as well. So if we're just talking numbers, well Blumhouse's trilogy was the most successful.

[00:06:51]However, I think it's deeper than that because looking where we are now after that trilogy has ended, it's safe to say that the Halloween franchise truly has no idea where it's going. It's been around for decades and one luxury this franchise has always had is being able to reach back into the bag and pull out Jamie Lee Curtis, forget most of everything that came before it to bring in general audiences, make money and reinvigorate the series. But now it doesn't have that anymore. Not only is Jamie Lee Curtis getting up there in age, but they told everybody that's it.

[00:07:24]And clearly based off of the end of Halloween Ends, you can't bring Jamie Lee Curtis back as Laurie Strode with Michael Myers. It just won't work. Did you see how that movie ended? He's dead.

[00:07:35]So they can't go back to that. So I think it's safe to say that while this was the most successful financially, creatively, no. There is nowhere to go from there. Then you go to Rob Zombie's movies and you could make the argument that this is actually probably the most successful because it was a rebooted timeline. None of the previous actors or characters, storylines, movies, none of it mattered. You just had to have basic knowledge of the original Halloween.

[00:08:01]This is essentially an entirely different universe with new versions of these characters and you can go in any direction you wanted to. Halloween 2 did that. Sure, it had a nice dream sequence that was an homage to the original Halloween 2, but in reality, Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 was just a totally different film. You could have made a third, fourth, fifth, sixth movie out of that and they could have gone in wildly different directions. However, too much time has passed to revisit that timeline. One, two, Rob Zombie's Halloween 2, though I am a huge fan, was probably before Halloween Ends the movie in the series that pissed the most people off. It was not a critical darling and it sure as hell was not a fan darling. Furthermore, you're not going to get Rob Zombie to ever come back to Halloween. Even if Malek Akkad was like, "I want to make a Halloween 3.

[00:08:50]I want to make a sequel to H2 nearly 20 years later." There's absolutely no way Rob would do it and quite frankly, I don't think most audiences would show up for it. Maybe the hardcore fans of Rob's movies, but this would not be a Halloween 2018 reinvention and relaunch.

[00:09:06]It just wouldn't happen that way. Also, Rob made sure that at the end of Halloween 2, it would be very difficult to make a sequel to his movies. He did a lot of things with these characters that there's really no undoing of them. Dr. Loomis, dead. Michael Myers, who had been established as a human being in his universe, pretty freaking dead. And Laurie Strode, depending on the cut you watch, might be dead or at best institutionalized.

[00:09:32]So, just like the most recent trilogy, creatively, there was nowhere to go from there either. And that leads us to Halloween H2O. And spoiler alert, that's my answer here. I think Halloween H2O was unequivocally the best relaunch of this franchise. Now, I do have to say, creatively, it was basically up against it just like the other two timelines were as well. She cut off Michael Myers' head at the end of Halloween H2O. So, where do you go from there? Of course, they figured out a way in Halloween Resurrection, just like they would have in a Halloween 3 off of Rob Zombie's Halloween 2, but that doesn't mean it made a lot of sense. And clearly, it didn't. And it didn't make a lot of people happy. However, I think that Halloween H2O was the most successful reboot of this franchise and set it up for decades more of success because, one, it showed that Halloween could get with the times. See, in the '90s, that's when we saw Scream really take hold. The new self-aware meta slasher films were all the rage. And Halloween H2O definitely put its hand in the pile there. Sometimes a little bit too much, but it showed that this franchise could adapt. Two, it legitimized the series again with audiences around the world.

[00:10:46]Look, as much as I love the Thorn timeline, let's be honest, after Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers came out, nearly anybody would have told you it was probably done. There was nowhere else to go from there. Nobody was watching anymore, and those who were watching at the time were largely not happy with it. So, to be able to bring the franchise back and make it a critical, fan, and commercial success just 3 years later was honestly mind-blowing. I think it was the shot in the arm that Trancas needed to know that Michael Myers truly was a character that could persist because you guys have to remember, this was 1998.

[00:11:22]It had only been 20 years from the original film. And up to that point, there had only been two true hits in the franchise, Halloween and Halloween 2. It also taught Trancas a very important lesson that they again would use in 2018.

[00:11:36]You could ignore previous movies. You didn't have to keep everything canon.

[00:11:42]We've seen so many franchises do that now at this point. But back in the '90s, that was not in vogue yet to just write out previous films and tell fans, "Hey, those didn't happen. We're continuing off of a previous one. All those other movies in between, yeah, ignore those."

[00:11:58]This was the first time Halloween had done that and it worked to great effect and they would do it again. And I'm sure they're going to do it again eventually.

[00:12:08]And that was super important to the longevity of this franchise because if they had not learned that lesson and tried this, would Halloween have ever continued after The Curse of Michael Myers? Maybe. Maybe we would have gotten one of those Halloween 7 scripts that was supposed to go straight to video, but let's be honest. I mean, who was going to watch that? I love Hellraiser, but Hellraiser got mired in that for years and years to the point where nobody even recognized Hellraiser anymore. Nobody watched it. Nobody talked about it. Now, also I have to say that I think Halloween H2O personally is the best relaunch of the franchise just in terms of quality. I loved Rob Zombie's Halloween when it came out, but now I'm lukewarm at best on that film.

[00:12:48]Halloween 2018, it's near the back of my franchise ranking. Does a lot of things well, but it feels like a pale imitator in a lot of ways of Halloween H2O. But Halloween H2O is unequivocally Jamie Lee Curtis's best performance in this franchise. I do think that there are a lot of issues with the film, but the heart, the core of that movie is so strong. I will always hold the movie in a higher regard because of that. In a Halloween movie with Laurie Strode, you got to get that character right. Now, you also need to get Michael Myers right. They definitely fumbled the bag there in Halloween H2O, but I'd much rather when you're selling me an anniversary film, a return of our original final girl, get her right, then mess that character up entirely. But again, that's just my opinion. I cannot objectively say that Halloween H2O is the best relaunch of this franchise. But that's where I sit. I think that it was the best one. I think it taught the franchise lessons that kept the franchise going, and I think it re-legitimized the series, and I think reinvigorated it for decades to come. I think it is very fair to say that Halloween 2018 only exists because of Halloween H2O. Halloween 2007 only exists because of Halloween H2O. Because without Halloween H2O, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers might have been the last Halloween film most people ever saw. But I don't know, the question is for you guys. I feel like I was fair here. I made sure to give flowers to each timeline here and give the merit of each one. But I do think there is a winner here. I want to hear down below what you think. So sound off in the comment section. I want to thank each and every one of you guys for watching.

[00:14:25]Please make sure to leave a like on it.

[00:14:27]Subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. This is Nick at The Last River Drive-In, and I'm pulling out.