Part Texas Chainsaw, part Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and all sorts of messed up, The Devil’s Rejects was one heck of a good time and instantly turned director Rob Zombie into a fan favorite, with a strong cult developing around his films in the years since.
For those unfamiliar, the pic’s a spinoff of 2003’s House of 1,000 Corpses (which was also quite good) and given that it ended with the main characters – Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig), Otis (Bill Moseley), and Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie) – presumably meeting their maker after a rather violent police shootout, many thought that was it for the franchise. But then Zombie shocked us all by announcing 3 From Hell late last year.
Yes, as you surely know, the director’s now knee-deep in production on his Devil’s Rejects sequel and while we’re absolutely thrilled that we’re getting the chance to spend more time with the Firefly clan, it seems like Zombie wasn’t always planning to turn their story into a trilogy.
Speaking to Blabbermouth in a recent interview, the director explained that after The Devil’s Rejects, he thought he was done with these characters.
“After the second one, I thought, ‘We’re done with it,’ but I always think that with every movie,” he said. “And then you kind of live with it for a long time, and the movies sort of take on a life of their own, or they start getting popular and the fans really start embracing them and the characters, and you start thinking, ‘Well… Hmmm… What if I did this? What if I did that?’ This one, it’s 14 years in between the two films, so it’s been a long time; it wasn’t really a rush to make it, by any means.”
What Zombie says here makes sense. I mean, no one really expected for this franchise to explode in popularity after the second installment. It was a great movie, sure, but Corpses only grossed about $16 million and Rejects only did $19 million. Granted, neither had a huge budget, but those kind of numbers certainly aren’t the type that would send filmmakers running back to make a third outing.
Over the years, though, fans really started taking to the characters and so, now we’re getting 3 From Hell. It unfortunately won’t be with us until mid-2019, but already we’ve heard that it’s an absolute “masterpiece,” one which will apparently “blow our minds.” True, those words come from star Bill Moseley who’s obviously a bit biased, but we’re still giddy with anticipation to see what Zombie has in store for us.