Few slasher films have been as inventive or downright enjoyable in recent years as Happy Death Day and its brilliantly-named sequel Happy Death Day 2U – the first a killer take on the Groundhog Day time-loop premise, and the second cranking things up with a time-travelling Back To The Future Part II-style twist. But while the final scene of HDD 2U set up a tantalising threequel, the third film in the Blumhouse series is yet to materialise. For now, writer-director Christopher Landon has moved on to similarly high-concept body-swap horror Freaky – watch the brilliant trailer here, and read Empire’s trailer breakdown interview with Landon here – but the filmmaker still holds out hope that Happy Death Day 3 might one day happen, if not right now.
“It's definitely off to the side [at the moment],” he says. “I wish it wasn't, and I know that Jason [Blum, producer] is passionate about it, I know I'm very passionate about it, and I know that Jessica Rothe is really eager to do it as well. I wrote the idea for the third movie some time ago. I think we're all excited by it, because it's different than the other two films, and so we're really just crossing our fingers and hoping that our fanbase continues to grow – which is something that I've really enjoyed watching over the years, seeing more and more people discover both films. So who knows. There might be a time when it makes sense, and hopefully it's sooner rather than later.”
Whether or not the third film comes is still up in the air for now – but Landon is happy to wait for it, not facing the same time-sensitive pressures of the second film. “The idea for the third film is not set in the same day, if that's a big spoiler. So it can happen later,” he says. “We're not up against a really difficult clock right now. The other movies were hard, because they were set in the exact same day, so everybody had to look the same, be the same. The pressure is off there.”
As well as confirming that it’s set on a different day to the previous two films, Landon also teased a little bit more about the Happy Death Day threequel. “I guess I can give you the title without pissing everybody off,” he said. “It does not have the '3' in there! But it's called Happy Death Day To Us. That is the working title.” Hopefully, someday, we'll get the film that goes with it.