Highlights
- Happy Death Day creators continue to talk about the horror comedy trilogy during interviews
- Director Christopher Landon is no longer working on Scream 7 after behind the scenes shakeup
- Happy Death Day 3 title, plot and possible Freaky crossover revealed
Jump to:
- What is Happy Death Day about?
- What is Happy Death Day 2U about?
- What would be the title of Happy Death Day 3?
- What is the Happy Death Day To Us plot?
- Has Happy Death Day 3 been confirmed?
- Happy Death Day franchise box office performance
- Who is Christopher Landon?
- Could there be a Happy Death Day/Freaky Crossover movie?
- What next for the Happy Death Day franchise?
Horror mastermind Jason Blum, head of Blumhouse, may be dropping sequel hints for fans of the 2017 Christopher Landon horror comedy, Happy Death Day, and its 2019 sequel, Happy Death Day 2U.
With the recent news that The Purge 6 is progressing, it’s time to take a look at another sequel that we think Blumhouse may have in early development.
Fans of the Groundhog Day-style slasher franchise are keeping a keen eye out for any possible information that another exciting sequel might be on the way.
While Blumhouse hasn’t given us much Happy Death Day 3 news for a while, we believe that it is still on the production company’s mind.
Christopher Landon, director of Happy Death Day, and director/co-writer of Happy Death Day 2U, has recently left the production of Scream 7 (unofficially known as 7cream).
We know that Landon has other projects in the pipeline, but maybe this means he will have time to dedicate to reviving a project such as Happy Death Day 3.
Read on to find out what we know about Happy Death Day 3 so far!
What is Happy Death Day about?
Happy Death Day is a 2017 black comedy slasher film featuring a college student named Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe).
She is murdered by the ‘Babyface Killer’ on the evening of her birthday, and wakes up the following day stuck in a time loop of the day that she died. Each loop ends with her murder by the masked killer, only for her to wake up and repeat the cycle.
With the help of her classmate Carter Davis (Israel Broussard), she sets out to identify her killer and stop the time loop before it is too late. The film also features Ruby Modine, Phi Vu, and Charles Aitken.
This horror comedy hit really stands out against the landscape of 2017 cinema, which was filled with many serious horror movies that were out to terrify you psychologically.
🔪 2017 was a year of breakout horror movie hits.
Despite the tough competition, Happy Death Day is one of the 15 most popular horror movies released in 2017, according to IMDb.
Fans of the genre were treated to scary horror movies like:
- Get Out
- IT
- Alien: Covenant
- Mother!
Happy Death Day is complemented by another popular 2017 horror comedy movie, The Babysitter. This Netflix original starred Samara Weaving before she did the 2019 horror comedy, Ready or Not.
Like Happy Dead Day, The Babysitter received a sequel but has not yet made trilogy status.
Watch the trailer for the Blumhouse horror comedy Happy Death Day (2017) below!
What is Happy Death Day 2U about?
Happy Death Day 2U (2019) is a sequel to the 2017 film, where Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) finds herself experiencing a different iteration of the same time loop from the first film.
This time, it’s Carter’s roommate, Ryan Phan (Phi Vu), who is experiencing the loop. With the help of Samar Ghosh (Suraj Sharma) and Andrea ‘Dre’ Morgan (Sarah Yarkin), they discover that the loop was created by an experimental quantum reactor.
The film also features Rachel Matthews, and Ruby Modine returns as one of Tree’s sorority sisters.
The sequel takes an unexpected turn towards science fiction, revealing that the time loop is caused by the malfunction of a quantum physics machine in the college science lab. This new setup provides us with a fresh cast of nerdy characters to come along for the adventure.
🔪 Horror trivia: The first Happy Death Day movie was released in the US and Canada on Friday the 13th of October, 2017!
Australia missed out on the infamous release date but instead got to see the film a day earlier on Thursday, 12 October.
While the story is full of exciting horror twists, it also elaborates on the backstory surrounding the death of Tree’s mother, with whom she shares a birthday (September 18).
Tree finds herself jumping into a different dimension where her mother never died and is faced with an impossible choice that could see her stuck in that dimension forever.
The sci-fi horror comedy ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, promising that the quantum reactor still has plenty of chaos left to cause.
If the third movie had been made, the difference likely would have been that this time they’d be twisting the fabric of reality with the assistance of government funding.
What would be the title of Happy Death Day 3?
The third instalment of the franchise was operating under the working title Happy Death Day To Us.
Watch the trailer for the 2019 horror comedy sequel, Happy Death Day 2U, below!
In a September 2020 interview with Empire, franchise director and co-writer Christopher Landon said,
“I guess I can give you the title without pissing everybody off. It does not have the ‘3’ in there! But it’s called Happy Death Day To Us. That is the working title.”
This implies that it will no longer be just Tree entering alternate dimensions and experiencing a deadly time loop.
The ‘Us’ in the title says that the whole gang may find themselves in a dangerous loop of their own.
While promoting his 2023 supernatural family film, We Have A Ghost, Christopher Landon confirmed some details about the Happy Death Day 3 plot.
Watch the trailer for Christopher Landon’s 2023 family-friendly Netflix horror ghost story below!
He provided a brief description of where he envisioned the story going but didn’t go into too much detail.
Hopefully, his brief summary is because he wants to keep the details a secret in case the movie is eventually made.
Keeping reading to find out what we know about the Happy Death Day 3 plot!
What is the Happy Death Day To Us plot?
There has not been an official plot summary released for Happy Death Day To Us yet, however, we have had hints of where the franchise might head.
Based on the cliffhanger at the end of Happy Death Day 2U, we would expect the third movie to have a setting that involves underground government labs, shady secret agents, and probably a big twist to close out the would-be trilogy.
🔪 Horror trivia: The Bayfield Babyface Killer was designed by Tony Gardner, who also designed the Ghostface mask from the Scream films. He has also supervised the Chucky animatronics since Seed of Chucky!
When disclosing the title of the third movie, Christopher Landon also consfirmed some plot details in his interview,
“The third movie was going to be an epic apocalyptic adventure with still elements of horror. That was not getting left behind. But yeah, we were going to change gears again and it was going to be bigger,”
The Happy Death Day To Us story would probably continue to follow our final girl from the first two films, Tree, as she and her friends experience the full power of quantum physics.
It sounds like Landon is looking to end the franchise with a bang with his promise of apocalyptic themes.
Presumably, the apocalypse would be occurring in one of the alternate realities, although we won’t know until we get more details.
Considering Landon is still being asked (and answering) questions about the Happy Death Day franchise, we can safely assume that both he and Blumhouse are aware of the endearing fandom surrounding it.
Has Happy Death Day To Us been confirmed?
Unfortunately, Blumhouse has not officially confirmed that another Happy Death Day sequel will be going ahead.
Watch Tree figure out who is trying to kill her in the below clip from Happy Death Day. Spoilers, if you haven’t seen it!
Director Christopher Landon gave an update on where the project is up to in his 2020 interview with Empire, saying,
“It’s definitely off to the side [at the moment].”
“I wish it wasn’t, and I know that Jason [Blum, producer] is passionate about it, I know I’m very passionate about it, and I know that Jessica Rothe is really eager to do it as well. I wrote the idea for the third movie some time ago. I think we’re all excited by it, because it’s different than the other two films, and so we’re really just crossing our fingers and hoping that our fanbase continues to grow – which is something that I’ve really enjoyed watching over the years, seeing more and more people discover both films. So who knows. There might be a time when it makes sense, and hopefully it’s sooner rather than later.”
In January 2022, Jason Blum opened his Twitter to questions from fans, and one question and answer stood out amongst the rest.
A fan tweeted to Blum, “any updates on a 3rd death day that we should be happy about?”
Blum responded to the fan with a vague tweet, implying that the project is not dead yet.
“Something is stirring. I will say that” is Blum’s response. It seems that 3 years after Happy Death Day 2U, things were still on the slate one way or another.
This is contrary to what he said to a different fan some years earlier, during a 2019 question-and-answer session on Twitter.
He said in response to a fan asking about the likelihood of Happy Death Day 3,
With Blum’s response, “Not very [likely] but not impossible,” it seems like the project has struggled to find its footing from the start.
In June 2022, Blum sat down for an interview with Screen Rant, saying,
“Happy Death Day 3. We discussed it. I’m not saying we’re doing it, but we discussed it. It was very much on the top of our minds. I’m not saying we’re doing it, but I’m not saying we’re not doing it.”
Happy Death Day franchise box office performance
Jason Blum has previously said that Happy Death Day 2U did not necessarily need to reach a certain level of financial success for them to produce the third movie, Happy Death Day To Us.
| Movie | Budget | Box office (US) | Worldwide |
|---|---|---|---|
| Happy Death Day | $5m | $55m | $125m |
| Happy Death Day 2U | $9m | $28m | $64m |
The first film in this horror comedy franchise, Happy Death Day, made $125 million on a budget of about $5 million, becoming a surprise commercial and critical success for the studio.
The sequel, Happy Death Day 2U, grossed a lesser amount of $65 million on a $9 million budget.
While this isn’t quite the runaway success of the first film, it shows that there is an audience for the franchise.
This brings the total box office for the franchise to an enormous $189 million for less than $15 million in production budgets for the two movies.
During an interview with Inverse in 2020, Blum stated about the third instalment,
“It didn’t happen immediately afterward because the second movie didn’t make enough money,”
“It’s very rare that you make a second sequel after a movie that didn’t perform very well, but I want to do it because I thought the second movie was spectacular. It didn’t perform well for reasons having nothing to do with the film. I really want to make a third one and I think we’re going to figure it out.”
Blum’s statement on the financial success of the second movie not necessarily determining whether we get a third movie implies that he is aware of market forces that prevented Happy Death Day 2U from meeting its full potential.
Spending associated with marketing fees plays a significant role in calculating the total cost to produce, promote, and release a feature film.
Although the Happy Death Day movies had a total collective budget of under $15m, this figure usually doesn’t include the additional marketing costs.
With huge marketing campaigns for both movies, it is safe to say that the marketing budget would have been close to, or possibly more than, the production budgets for the films.
Director Christopher Landon seemed to agree that the potential cost of his concept for the movie is what held back Happy Death Day 3.
He stated in his interview with The Wrap,
“I think that was probably also what held us back a touch because the concept for the third movie is a bigger, much bigger movie.”
Who is Christopher Landon?
Christopher Landon is a popular writer, director, and producer, who has made some of the most well-known horror comedies released in the last decade.
He made a name for himself by terrifying audiences with relatively small-budget projects that are big on scares (and box office!).
Landon was also recently slated to direct the upcoming seventh instalment in the Scream franchise, (which does not have a title yet but we assume to be Scream 7).
This is no longer the case, as he has left the production after a series of the film’s stars left or were dropped by the studio.
Landon has written and directed movies in one of the biggest franchises in found footage horror, Paranormal Activity.
He wrote 5 of the movies movies, which are:
- Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
- Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
- Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)
- Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014) *
- Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin (2021)
* In addition to his writing credit on the fifth entry in the Paranormal Activity movie franchise, he also directed the film, titled Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones.
Watch the scary found footage movie trailer for the Christopher Landon’s Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones.
Christopher Landon has also written and directed other popular movies including the body-swap horror comedy, Freaky (2020), and the family-friendly ghost story, We Have a Ghost (2023). With a 6.1 on IMDb and 42% on Rotten Tomatoes, We Have a Ghost was met with middling reviews.
Despite this, it is likely set to become a new Halloween tradition for some as Netflix confirmed in its 2023 engagement report that the movie earned 124.4 million viewing hours during the reporting period.
Some may also be surprised to learn that Landon co-wrote the 2007 Shia LeBeouf-led suburban thriller, Disturbia.
Why did Christopher Landon quit Scream 7?
The horror community was shocked in November 2023, when the news broke that Melissa Barrera had been fired from Scream 7.
It is alleged that this is due to comments she made about the Israel-Hamas war and attacks on Gaza on social media.
This was followed by the announcement that Barrera’s costar, Jenna Ortega, would suddenly be departing the project as well. Ortega’s departure was attributed to scheduling conflicts, however, the timing followed Barrera’s firing very closely.
Ortega claimed that she could not reprise her role in the franchise due to scheduling conflicts with her hit Tim Burton-created Netflix show, Wednesday.
Also in November, Landon shared his thoughts about the situation in a now-deleted tweet from his account.
Finally, after all of this, in December 2023 Scream 7 director Christopher Landon announced his resignation from the upcoming seventh film in the iconic slasher franchise.
Throwing in the towel (rightfully so), Christopher Landon tweeted about why he is resigning from the production.
Landon said it was a “dream job that turned into a nightmare”. He went on to add that he was honoured to have been a part of the project at all.
The fate of the project remains uncertain at the moment.
Fans of the Scream franchise are anticipating the return of original cast members to make sure the film can go ahead, or the introduction of a fresh new line-up of actors to start again with another reboot/requel.
The film was due for release in 2025.
Upcoming Christopher Landon movies
With Scream 7 off his plate, Landon may have the time to pick up a new project.
While we hope that the project will be within the Happy Death Day universe, we do know that he has some other things in the works.
Time Cut (2024)
Filmed in 2021, the upcoming Netflix horror comedy, produced by Christopher Landon, is finally expected to be released in 2024.
The film, titled Time Cut, will be directed by Hannah Macpherson.
The horror comedy (and maybe sci-fi) movie has been described as It’s BACK TO THE FUTURE meets SCREAM.
“LUCY FIELD — a modern high school senior and amateur inventor — accidentally finds a time machine and travels back to 2003, the year her sister was murdered by an unknown serial killer. Now torn between solving the mystery that has undone her parents and her hometown, saving the sister that she never knew, and irreparably altering the future — and her own existence — Lucy must decide how to stop the slasher, save her family, and blend into 2003.”
The Netflix time travel horror comedy has an expected release date of sometime in 2024.
Want to know more? Read our post Time Cut: Deleted Behind The Scenes Photo And Details About The 2024 Horror Comedy!
Arachnophobia remake (TBD)
In 2022, it was announced that Landon would direct a remake of the classic 1990 movie, Arachnophobia.
The original 90’s horror movie follows a small town where a new species of South American killer spider lands in a coffin imported from overseas.
As the spider starts to breed, it leaves a trail of death and destruction that puzzles and terrifies the community.
The horror film was directed by Frank Marshall and starred Jeff Daniels, John Goodman, and the late actor, Julian Sands.
Striking a chord with people who dislike the creepy critters, the film went on to become a cult hit amongst horror fans.
While we never received much information on Christopher Landon’s Arachnophobia remake, we believe that it would’ve been a great take on a classic horror movie from the 90’s.
Take a look at the trailer for this 90’s ‘thrillomedy’ below!
Landon was interviewed by Discussing Film in February 2023, stating about the remake,
“I’m hoping it should be my next film. We’re getting super close. The script’s done. I’ve been working on that for a while now. So now it’s just really about getting it together. I met a spider wrangler the other day, so that’s a good sign!”
While it sounds like the film was progressing at one point, we haven’t heard much new information for quite a while now.
Like Happy Day Death 3, fans will have to sit tight and keep their ear to the ground for any news about Landon’s Arachnophobia!
Landon has also been attached to direct a sci-fi thriller titled Capsule since 2017, and a film titled Liminal since 2016.
Could there be a Happy Death Day/Freaky Crossover movie?
In an interview with Screen Rant in February 2023, Landon was asked about the possibility of a Happy Death Day/Freaky crossover, which is an idea that has been rumoured for many years now.
He replied,
“Christopher Landon: Look, I can only say I’ve had an idea for Happy Death Day 3 for a while. It’s been pitched to everyone, so that’s a real thing.
The Happy Death Day/Freaky crossover is more just the fantasy of getting to work with Jessica Rothe and Kathryn together in one film. And I just think, tonally, they would blend well together. But in terms of what that plot actually looks like? I don’t know yet.”
We can see the appeal of a crossover film between Happy Death Day and Freaky.
Maybe Landon would create something in the same style as the 2003 classic Freddy vs Jason (another film that had a long-rumoured unmade sequel).
What next for the Happy Death Day franchise?
Until we get official confirmation of Happy Death Day to Us or a Happy Death Day/Freaky crossover, fans will just have to remain hopeful that we will see this trilogy completed.
Christopher Landon and Jason Blum continue to dominate in their areas of the industry, and neither is showing any signs of slowing down.
During Landon’s February 2023 Slashfilm interview, he gave us one last glimmer of hope that this movie may come to fruition.
He said,
“…I don’t know what it would take. There was talk for a minute of it maybe being a Peacock thing. Maybe. Maybe one day. The beauty of it is that my idea, the whole idea for the third movie, it is not dependent on any sort of specific window or timeframe. So I could make it any time, but I mean, as the years draw past, I feel like our chances are dimming.”
While he doesn’t sound positive, he does repeat that his idea is not time-limited, and if someday he can make the story, the timing will be right no matter how far into the future it is (within reason!)
Peacock is currently producing a Friday the 13th TV series, so the streaming platform clearly has an interest in existing horror franchises!
Learn more about the upcoming Peacock series with our post Crystal Lake: Everything You Need to Know About the Friday the 13th Prequel Series
I can’t wait to see what comes next from both of these creatives. Blumhouse doesn’t always put out my favourite movies, but it is one of the only studios that reliably caters to horror fans (for better or for worse), and for that I am thankful!
The Couch Ghost 
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