It has been five years since we last saw Tree Gelbman on the silver screen reckoning with her deadly time loop conundrum in Happy Death Day 2U, the sequel to 2017’s hit, inventive slasher Happy Death Day. There has been no official movement on a third installment to round out the trilogy (at least not anything that has been made public), but star Jessica Rothe still has her fingers crossed for Happy Death Day 3.
Rothe, who plays Tree in the films, is currently promoting her new movie Boy Kills World from director Moritz Mohr. During a recent interview with the folks at ScreenGeek, she was asked about the status of the proposed film. Rothe explained that writer/director Christopher Landon has everything figured out on his end. At this point, it’s in the hands of the folks at Blumhouse and Universal Studios.
“Well, I can say Chris Landon has the whole thing figured out. We just need to wait for Blumhouse and Universal to get their ducks in a row. But my fingers are so crossed. I think Tree [Gelbman] deserves her third and final chapter to bring that incredible character and franchise to a close or a new beginning.”
Not to spoil anything for those who maybe haven’t caught up with the films, but the second installment ends with a tease for what would be a very, very different story to help bring the trilogy to a close. “It’s actually a bigger movie than the previous two films, and that’s part of the issue,” Landon said last year of why Happy Death Day 3 hasn’t happened yet. Bigger movie equals a bigger budget and that always makes things a little tricky.
2017’s Happy Death Day was a sizable hit, taking in $125 million at the box office against a mere $5 million budget. So, Universal and Blumhouse made money. Happy Death Day 2U cost $9 million to make and only took in $64.6 million globally. The bean counters then saw a downward trend, so the notion of investing even more money in a third movie surely seemed like a bad bet.
But who knows? Much has changed in the last five years. Maybe enough time has passed now that the home video metrics tell a different story. Or maybe a streaming service can get on board the project. At the very least, Rothe hasn’t given up hope.
In the meantime, Rothe has a new movie out this weekend while Landon has been keeping himself quite busy. After dropping out of directing Scream VII, he signed on to direct a new thriller called The Drop for Blumhouse. He’s also working on a new werewolf movie titled Big Bad for Lionsgate based on Chandler Baker’s short story of the same name.
Boy Kills World is in theaters now.
