Movies - TV
The John Carpenter Lawsuit That Led To Halloween II
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
Although director John Carpenter wasn’t initially interested in doing a sequel to “Halloween,” producer Irwin Yablans pushed for another film, leading to “Halloween II.”
However, before making the movie, Carpenter first wanted to do another project called “The Fog.” Unfortunately, this other movie would land the filmmaker in legal trouble.
During a plane ride to Cannes, Yablans told his former colleague at Paramount, Robert Rehme, that he was planning on working with Carpenter on “The Fog” and “Halloween II.”
Rehme was the head of AVCO Embassy, a movie production studio. After the flight, Yablans was shocked to learn Rehme had announced that he was making “The Fog” with Carpenter.
In the documentary film, “The Nightmare Isn’t Over: The Making of Halloween II,” Yablans shared, “I was pretty upset. I was livid. I called Carpenter and I got nowhere with him.”
Yablans took Carpenter and AVCO Embassy to court. He added, “To settle the case, we agreed to let Carpenter do ‘The Fog’ with Embassy and we got the commitment for ‘Halloween II.’”
Part of this settlement saw Carpenter writing and producing the film as well as composing the music. However, directorial duties went to Rick Rosenthal instead.