Jamie Lee Curtis teases the "end" of the Halloween franchise

[Note: This article contains spoilers for 2021's Halloween Kills.]

Jamie Lee Curtis wants us to believe the beloved Halloween franchise is for sure, definitely, without a doubt wrapping up after Halloween Ends. Mm-hmm. The film, which releases on October 14, will complete David Gordon Green’s trilogy that began with 2018's Halloween. It will technically be the 13th film of the franchise. “I’m ready to end it, but I’m going to miss you all so much,” Curtis tearfully said while kicking off the New York Comic Con panel with moderator and fellow scream queen Drew Barrymore. “Endings are a bitch, but so is Laurie Strode,” she added (to a loud round of applause, we might add).

Curtis shared that Halloween Ends picks up four years after 2021's Halloween Kills, which closed with an “opera style” death of Laurie’s daughter, Karen (Judy Greer). Her granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak), is now writing a memoir, and Michael Myers hasn’t been seen since his last rampage. That’s not going to last long, of course. However, Curtis said that Laurie is quite different because she’s finally gotten the help she needs.

“She’s gotten grief therapy, so she’s not able to heal fully, but she’s able to live alongside her grief now. It doesn’t consume her, so maybe for a second, you get this idea that she’s going to be okay,” Curtis said. Crucially, the actor revealed that in Halloween Ends, the other Haddonfield residents have now turned on Laurie, an innocent victim brutalized by Michael for decades now. “The film shows what pervasive violence does to people.”

During the NYCC panel, Curtis shared the backstory of how she agreed to do Green’s Halloween trilogy. She got a call from her godson, Jake Gyllenhaal, who had worked with Green on Stronger, and requested she speak with him about the movies. Curtis appreciated that in these new films, Laurie had a family, even though it was fractured, and called Green “prescient” for his insights into these characters’ lives in light of the real-life #MeToo movement. “This final film is about so much more than Laurie or Michael,” she added.

Curtis also revealed that she conceptualized the idea for 1998's Halloween: H20 because it had never been done before, catching up with a character 20 years after she survives the original. “We wanted to show what happens when you run from fear. The whole conceit is if you’re running from fear, you’re dead inside. You can’t be alive.” Curtis didn’t want to end H20 on an ambiguous note so that fans might expect a comeback. She wanted Michael to die in that film (ideally without folks chanting, “Evil dies tonight”).

Writer Kevin Williamson came up with the loophole that Laurie kills an innocent person instead of Michael, but she doesn’t know that, so in her head (and ours), the story is complete. Curtis was cool with it, but on the condition that Laurie died in the next film because she’d be too guilty. Curtis also said she’d need to be paid a “shit ton of money” for it. This explains her brief cameo in Halloween: Resurrection. All these years later, Green’s Halloween trilogy is ending the iconic franchise all over again. Let’s see how long it lasts this time.

Halloween Ends releases in theaters and on Peacock on October 14.