Over 11 previous Halloween franchise installments spanning 40 years, a lot of folks have taken their best shot at deranged hockey-masked killer Michael Myers, and he kept coming back to the multiplex every time for exclusive engagements. You know, big star.
For Universal Pictures' 12th installment, Halloween Kills, Myers will be splitting his violent episodes in North American living rooms, with the film released day-and-date in theaters and on NBCUniversal's Peacock Oct. 15.
Only subscribers to the partially ad-supported $4.99-a-month Peacock Premium and $9.99-a-month commercial-free Peacock Premium Plus will have access to the horror movie, although they won't have to pay any premium "PVOD" fees.
This isn't the same thing as Universal going day-and-date with recent summer tentpoles A Quiet Place 2 or F9, both of which debuted exclusively in theaters. But with the Delta variant surging across the U.S., and Peacock subscriber growth decidedly not surging, perhaps the time was right for NBCU to try something different.
Universal Pictures, Miramax and Blumhouse rebooted Halloween with its original heroine, actress Jamie Lee Curtis, in 2018, recasting her as mother to a next-generation damsel in distress played by Judy Greer.
Released 40 years after the original, the rebooted Halloween broke franchise records, grossing $250 million at the worldwide box office.
In that movie, we left off with the indomitable Myers stuck in a trap within a burning house, Curtis' badly injured matriarch whisked off to the hospital with grave injuries sustained while once again trying to bring Myers to heel.
Yeah, so, it turns out that Greer's dutiful daughter was in such a rush to get her mother medical care, she didn't have time to confirm that Myers was, you know, dead.
But this time Universal assures us, dude is going down. "Evil dies tonight," the studio says in its press release.
