Trick 'R Treat 2's Script Is 'Really Great,' According To Director Michael Dougherty
Making a movie that turns into a holiday classic is no easy task. What's even harder is to make a classic so primed to be turned into a franchise as "Trick 'r Treat" and just ... stop after one movie. Although it was originally meant to arrive in theaters in October of 2007, Warner Bros. pushed back Michael Dougherty's directorial debut indefinitely. After a successful run at genre film festivals around the world, "Trick 'r Treat" ended up getting unceremoniously dumped two years later on home video. It wasn't until 2022 that the film even got a proper theatrical release.
Still, the film has endured as a staple of Halloween, with fans eager to learn about Dougherty's plans for a sequel — which has been a long time coming. Now, we finally have some solid information that not only is "Trick 'r Treat 2" still happening, but there's been genuine progress in its development. Speaking with Collider, Dougherty confirmed that a sequel to "Trick 'r Treat" is in active development.
"We have a stack of storyboards and a good fat stack of concept art done by Breehn Burns," he said, adding that he's written a script with his "Krampus" collaborators. "We have a really, really great script for a sequel. And I brought in my co-writer from 'Krampus' to do it with me. So Zach Shields and Todd Casey who [did] 'Krampus' with me also helped me write 'Trick 'r Treat Part 2.'"
So, there's a script, storyboards, and concept art. Unfortunately, there's still the matter of the strike due to studios refusing to pay actors fairly. According to Dougherty, the next problem is timing. "The next step, fingers crossed, would be looking at budget, of course, schedule, and all the rest."
Happy Halloween
A sequel to "Trick 'r Treat" has been a long, long time coming. It was first announced all the way back in 2013, when Dougherty said he wanted to make a new installment every year, or every other year. "It would sort of just be a new batch of stories and characters." It is very likely that the current script is quite different from Dougherty's original idea for the sequel. Still, that won't stop me from getting excited about Dougherty's promise back in the day to further explore who and what Sam is. As the filmmaker said back in 2013, "We'll be exploring Sam more and maybe getting into some back story of who and what he actually is."
The lack of a sequel can be blamed in part on regime changes at Legendary Pictures, which produced the original. With the arrival of new executives, it is common to discard projects in development from the previous regime. It happens all the time, and it is never not unfortunate.
Of course, there's also the fact that Dougherty has been quite busy since the release of the first "Trick 'r Treat." He made another holiday classic in "Krampus," and he directed the massive "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" in the time since. Hopefully, the next title on his resume has the words "Trick" and "Treat" in it.