Once The Haunting of Hill House seized the imagination and attention of Netflix subscribers around the world, spending weeks lodged at the top end of the most-watched list, the concept was suddenly refitted into the basis for an anthology series, which could coincidentally see the platform maximize the first-look development deal in place with creator Mike Flanagan.
Sequel series The Haunting of Bly Manor was an entirely different beast, offering a tragic Gothic romance rather than the straightforward scares that characterized Hill House, and as a result the drastic change of pace left some fans a little disappointed. Of course, they’d still bite Flanagan’s hand off for a third run of episodes, but in a new interview star Carla Gugino, who appeared in both, wasn’t sure if any more Hauntings would happen.
“I’m not attached to what he’s currently working on, but we do really, really love to collaborate together. So I think, yeah, I’m excited about what we get to delve into next, whether it be another Haunting or something else. I think it’s always so hard, as an audience, and I relate, because I’m an audience for things that I’m not in, and it’s hard because you love, you get invested and you love these things.
But I think the thing that we also should remember, in terms of supporting and being excited is, for an artist, if you look at like Bob Dylan or anyone, you look at any great artists, they’re always going to have to go like, ‘Okay, now I’m done with that chapter because I want to remain great and keep getting better’. You know what I mean? So whether he is done or not done with The Haunting, I don’t know, but I think no matter what, if there wasn’t a third one, it would be because he thinks whatever is next is better. And if he can make that one great, then that’ll be the thing.”
Gugino would be in a decent position to know, having played major roles in both anthologies so far, while she also collaborated with Flanagan on Netflix’s Stephen King adaptation Gerald’s Game, but the filmmaker has plenty of scary stories in the pipeline as it is without adding another one onto his plate.
Flanagan wrapped Midnight Mass last year before diving straight into literary adaptation The Midnight Club, and only recently signed on to craft a pilot for comic book adaptation Something is Killing the Children. For most people, three episodic horror projects would be more than enough, and that’s without considering that he may well be eying a return to the feature film realm at some point in the not too distant future. As things stand, we could be a long way away from finding out whether or not The Haunting will be back on our screens in any form.