Over the last few years, Christopher Landon has proven himself to be one of the horror genre’s most original and inventive talents, as well as cementing his position as one of Blumhouse’s most trusted collaborators. After writing the second, third and fourth installments of the Paranormal Activity franchise, he pulled double duty by directing fifth entry The Marked Ones, although he couldn’t prevent the law of diminishing returns from setting in.
The filmmaker’s next projects under producer Jason Blum were Happy Death Day and its sequel, which raked in over $190 million at the box office on combined production costs of less than $14 million. Both movies were also the subject of widespread praise from fans and critics alike, and each of them holds a solid 71% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Landon’s latest effort, meanwhile, the recently released Freaky, topped the domestic box office for two weeks and reviews were even stronger, with the body swap horror comedy boasting an 83% Rotten Tomatoes score, thanks to a fresh spin on a tired concept and two winning performances from Kathryn Newton and Vince Vaughn.
Happy Death Day 3 is apparently still on the cards, but in a new interview, star Jessica Rothe admitted that she’d love to see her character Tree Gelbman come across Freaky‘s Millie Kessler in a future crossover.
“I think that’s totally the way to go because, as you said, Kathryn Newton’s Butcher embodies so much strength, power, and twisted badass-ness in that role. I was so lucky to get to see it on opening weekend, and it has such fun, wild performances from both Kathryn and Vince. So I agree with you that it totally needs to be a showdown of Tree versus Millie. And maybe Vince can make a cameo as a scream queen because he gave us scream queens a run for our money. He did a really good job.”
Landon has already admitted that both movies take place in the same world, so there’s every chance we could see these particular corners of the Blumhouse universe diverge, especially since the properties have proven to be hugely successful. Not only that, but it also presents an easy out for the writer/director should he struggle coming up with a story to continue either Happy Death Day or Freaky.