Rest assured, the Horror Master is still alive.
In light of an errant article from Rotten Tomatoes, in which the outlet pronounced John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing, Big Trouble In Little China) as dead, the director himself has taken to Twitter to set the record straight.
The now-deleted tweet from RT initially came bearing the caption: “John Carpenter would have been 70 years old today! We celebrate his birthday by looking back at his five favorite films.”
Naturally, film fans jumped on the gaffe – the Internet is written in ink, after all – producing all sorts of horror-tinged memes to poke fun at Rotten Tomatoes, not to mention the irony of the Tweet itself. For Carpenter, we imagine he got quite the shock earlier this morning, as debunking stories of one’s death is not exactly how one wants to remember their 70th birthday. Still, the legendary filmmaker, who has been in a state of semi-retirement since 2011, took the erroneous Tweet in his stride, confirming that he is very much still alive. And his sense of humor is, too.
Via Twitter:
To Rotten Tomatoes, despite how it appears, I'm actually not dead.
— John Carpenter (@TheHorrorMaster) January 16, 2018
https://twitter.com/FreddyInSpace/status/953272743801376769
Currently overseeing new incarnations of Halloween and Escape From New York, John Carpenter still has his hand in numerous projects all across Hollywood, and long may that continue.
Meanwhile, Halloween has finally begun filming after a short, last-minute delay. With David Gordan Green behind the lens and Danny McBride on script duties (“you should be very scared,” he warns), it’ll creep into theaters on October 19th – just two weeks after the arrival of Sony’s Venom spinoff.