One of the most twisted horror film series out there is getting a new installment

It has been more than a decade since we last saw Arkin O'Brien (Josh Stewart) and the menacing serial killer dubbed The Collector, but filmmaker Marcus Dunstan recently revealed that a third movie in the franchise is officially in development!

Those who have stayed up-to-date on the franchise might recall that Dunstan, who directed and co-wrote the scripts for The Collector and The Collection, has been trying to get the third movie—The Collected—in the series made for years now.

According to The Direct, they even started filming for several days back in 2021 before production had to shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Things never got up and running again after that. They tried to restart production, but it didn't work out, and The Collected became embroiled in legal complications, something horror fans are all too familiar with (Friday the 13th).

Well, The Direct recently got a new exclusive from the filmmaker and revealed that they've finally gotten the kinks ironed out. The Collected is "free" and they will be moving ahead with the project ASAP. Dunstan is staying mum on plot details, which makes sense, as he says it's too early to give away too much information. He does credit a man named Todd for spending "five years getting these rights all sorted out."

"And we're not bringing it back until it's something that we feel is the best one. And that we feel is in honor of the time we've been waiting because we haven't been waiting on the bench just staring at the sky. We've been conceiving and concocting. Yeah, here it comes. And we want to honor this opportunity with something great."

- Mark Dunstan via The Direct

The last time we saw The Collector and Stewart's character Arkin O'Brien was in the 2012 sequel The Collection (SPOILER!), with Arkin turning the tables on the masked killer and trapping him after freeing the killer's latest victim, a young woman named Elena (Emma Fitzpatrick).

The ending suggested that Arkin would soon be tormenting The Collector in the same way he tortured so many of his victims. Given that a third movie is happening, we can probably assume that the killer will escape from Arkin's clutches and resume creating his elaborate death traps.

Stewart teased his potential involvment in the third movie on X (formerly Twitter).

His acknowledgment of the third movie's existence doesn't confirm that he'll be back, but it'll be fun to speculate about the potential storyline!

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