When the original Happy Death Day released in 2017, it was little more than a modest Blumhouse-backed horror-comedy. Made for a budget of less than $5 million, the Jessica Rothe-starring film from writer-director Christopher Landon wound up making more than $125 million at the box office and becoming something of an audience favorite over the course of the next few years. The film got its own maze at Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights and is still fondly remembered by horror fans to this day.
A few years later, the sequel, Happy Death Day 2U, was less of a success. While the whole team behind the original film returned and got to work on a sequel with a budget nearly twice the size of the original, it ultimately wasn’t the breakout sequel that Blumhouse was clearly hoping for. The sequel still made a substantial profit but only netted about half of the box office totals of the previous film. As a result, plans for a potential third film seemed to have been put on hold indefinitely, despite several teases both in the film and in the press surrounding it. But now, nearly a decade after the first film, star Jessica Rothe has confirmed that she and Landon have a story for a third Happy Death Day film and are eager to get it going.
When asked about the Happy Death Day movies, Rothe revealed to Deadline that she and franchise creative lead Christopher Landon “broke the third movie” (i.e. came up with a story for the film) and were “just waiting on Universal and Blumhouse.” In other words, Happy Death Day 3 is a sealed deal from the creative side of things; it just needs the official greenlight from the financial side in order to become a reality. This is great news, but the question of whether or not it will actually happen unfortunately lingers large over this development.
The first Happy Death Day film was essentially a riff on "What if Groundhog’s Day was a slasher?" to the extent that Landon literally ends the film with the characters talking about that iconic time-loop comedy. The result was a Scream-esque meta-slasher-comedy that was filled with endearing and likable characters as well as some great gags but still maintained its horror bona fides. The second film, Happy Death Day 2U, dove deeper into the science fiction and comedic elements and ultimately had more in common with Back to the Future by its end than it did with the slasher genre. The second film ends on a cliffhanger, setting up future time-travelling antics if a third film were to ever be made, but I think it’s safe to say that probably ultimately isn’t the version Rothe and Landon are now pitching.
Rather, if a third Happy Death Day movie were to happen now, it seems apparent from the gap between releases and Rothe’s own admission of Blumhouse’s apparent apprehension that it would be a more grounded and easily bankable affair.
I am a huge fan of both Rothe and Landon. I think Landon is one of the more interesting and under-sung filmmakers in the genre today, with great modern horror films like Freaky and Drop to his name. If they want to come back and do a third film, I’m all for it, and I think Blumhouse and Universal should let them. Even the second film turned a profit, and a third film would likely do the same, so why not make a few extra bags of money and let these passionate creatives make another Happy Death Day film in the process? Sounds like a win-win to me.
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