Tom Holland is working on another sequel to his 1985 vampire favorite Fright Night, and we all have The Copyright Act of 1976 to thank for it.
The Act allows copyrights transferred on or after January 1, 1978 to be reclaimed by the original creators 35 years later, with a five-year window to do so. Holland’s wry take on the Dracula mythos and Hitchcock’s Rear Window celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2015, giving the writer/director only a few short years before he can invite Jerry Dandridge and the gang back into his home. Holland expanded on Twitter, saying that he’s “almost finished with the Fright Night 3 novel and many things go from there.”
Holland is cagey about suggesting a third film, but judging by his Twitter feed, fans still think that Charley Brewster is so cool. The writer adds that Charley and Amy will return, but he’s not sure who will be living next door…but he probably has fangs. Holland later took to Twitter to clarify the notion of Charley and Amy returning to the big screen that some fans misconstrued:
Fright Night was originally adapted into a novelization in 1985 by horror writer John Skipp; the novel delved a little bit more into the backstories of the characters, revealing that Charley’s father divorced his mother, that the kids attend Christopher L. Cushing High School, and that Peter Vincent is close friends with actor Roddy McDowall, who portrayed the character in the movie. Now Comics also released a monster-of-the-week style series that ran from 1988 until 1990.
Fright Night Part 2 was released in 1989, despite the studio’s initial rush to put a follow-up into production based on test audiences’ responses to the original. Eventually, Jose Menendez—whom Roddy McDowall referred to as “the worst human being he had ever met”—acquired the rights to Fright Night. McDowall and Holland were set to meet with Menendez regarding the possibility of a third entry in the Fright Night saga, but two weeks before the men were scheduled to meet, Menendez was murdered by his kids, Joseph and Erik. “There was something really, really wrong with Menendez. That whole story is a horror movie, Holland says. “And Roddy would never speak of it after that.”
Holland told Blumhouse that he never thought about what to do with Fright Night III after the meeting that never happened in 1989, but that appears to have changed. Perhaps in two years, audiences will be welcomed to Fright Night Part III…for real.