Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later logo

Production Trivia

  • Jamie Lee Curtis was the one who reached out to the producers to make come back to the series as an anniversary event. She had hoped to have John Carpenter return as director and Debra Hill return as producer.
  • John Carpenter eventually left the project, after Dimension refused to meet his demands. He wanted a director’s fee of $10,000,000 – rationalizing that the fee was worth it since he was paid little for the original Halloween – and he wanted a multi-picture deal with Dimension.
  • Robert Zappia’s first draft for the film was to continue from the established storyline at that point, and was intended by the Akkad family and Dimension Films to be a direct-to-video sequel. His original draft was received well-enough that he was kept on to rework the script into the theatrical film featuring the return of Jamie Lee Curtis.
  • A total of three masks were used in the film’s production, owing to disputes between director Steve Miner, the Akkad family and Dimension Films. This results in the mask frequently changing throughout the film, despite the bulk of it taking place on one night.
  • A subplot involving two detectives following Michael Myers was scripted and filmed, but cut from the final film. Their scenes didn’t show up in the film’s television cut, and have never surfaced.
  • Unadjusted for inflation, Halloween H20 became the first Halloween to make more than $50,000,00 at the box office and was the highest-grossing Halloween film for 9 years until the release of Rob Zombie’s 2007 remake.
  • Dimension Films and Jamie Lee Curtis were both in favour of killing Michael Myers for good at the film’s conclusion, but Moustapha Akkad notably balked at the idea, as he refused to let Michael die.
    • A compromise was eventually made where the film would appear that Michael was dead, but the sequel would explain that Michael had swapped places with a paramedic. There were scenes filmed during Halloween H20 that were intended to be used to explain this in Halloween Resurrection.
    • Jamie Lee Curtis also refused to let Halloween H20 acknowledge this switch, as she believed the film’s success would come with the knowledge that Laurie believed she had finally killed her boogeyman after twenty years.

Cast Trivia

  • The original actors from the first film were sought out for cameos, such as PJ Soles being approached to portray the role that eventually went to Janet Leigh. Soles was reluctant to sign on, as she wasn’t sure if she wanted to play a different character in the same timeline as the original film.
  • Jamie Lee Curtis said her motivation for returning to the Halloween franchise for this film was to serve as a thank you to the fans of the series and her career, and had originally expressed a desire to entire a retirement from show business after the film’s release.
    • However, once it became clear she was the only one from the original interested in returning, her excitement over the project dwindled and she’s come to recognize it as just a “paycheck” film.
  • This was Janet Leigh’s first film role in eighteen years, directly following her role in John Carpenter’s The Fog, which also starred Jamie Lee Curtis and Tom Atkins.
  • Josh Hartnett didn’t sign on for the film until he was told of Jamie Lee Curtis’ involvement.
  • Michelle Williams had signed on without ever seeing any of the previous films.

General Trivia

  • Though it serves as a direct sequel to Halloween II, Kevin Williamson’s original treatment for the film featured a scene that recognized the previous three films. This was ultimately deleted once it was decided to ignore the films that didn’t feature Jamie Lee Curtis’s character.
  • With a run time of 86 minutes, Halloween H20 is the shortest Halloween film in the franchise, eclipsing the record that had just been set three years earlier by The Curse of Michael Myers.
  • After the rise of meta references in horror films following Scream‘s success, Halloween H20 found itself filled with easter eggs regarding other franchises.
    • A statue of a cenobite can be seen in Jimmy’s home in the opening.
    • Plotholes aside, Scream 2 is playing in this film. Chris Durand served as one of the stunt men for Ghostface during the film.
    • Laurie Strode tells John and Molly to go down the street to the Becker’s – the last name of Drew Barrymore’s character in the first Scream.
    • Steve Miner also directed the second and third Friday the 13th film.
  • Laurie was supposed to walk by the actor Mike Myers during the lunchtime scenes, but the actor declined to do a cameo.
  • John Ottman composed a score for the entire film, but once he was finished, none of the producers were a fan of it. Though some remnants of it remain, it was mixed in with outtakes of Marco Beltrami’s score for Scream and Scream 2, as well as some quick compositions that he was able to do.
  • With a release date in August, Halloween H20 became the first Halloween film to be released in the summer rather than the fall. This would become the norm for the next three films, until 2018’s Halloween returned the series to an October release.