While the Halloween franchise has had its ups and downs in the various sequels and Rob Zombie remakes over the past 39 years, there’s a bright shining beacon of hope in the series at the moment. News of a Halloween remake broke earlier this year, with Danny McBride and David Gordon Green writing the project and Green directing for Blumhouse producer Jason Blum. While the new film has been shrouded in secrecy, there’s a lot to be excited about: Jamie Lee Curtis reprises her role as Laurie Strode; Judy Greer co-stars as Laurie Strode’s daughter; and John Carpenter is involved as executive producer, creative consultant, and potentially composer.

Carpenter revealed recently that this new Halloween movie—which is currently in production—would be ignoring all the sequels, but declined to reveal much else. Well we now have a bit more clarity courtesy of McBride himself, who nails down the timeline in an interview with Yahoo:

“We’re kind of ignoring all the films past the first one. It picks up after the first one, but it’s sort of an alternate reality. It’s as if the first Halloween ended in a slightly different way.”

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Image via Universal Pictures

This would explain how Laurie Strode is back after being unceremoniously killed off in Halloween: Resurrection. It’ll be interesting to see how central a role Strode is to this new story, and McBride says the whole project has been a dream come true:

“I’m a humongous Halloween fan, so when David and I got approached about doing this from Blumhouse [the studio behind Get Out], the first thing David and I said was, ‘We’ll come up with a take, but we have to pitch it to [franchise creator John] Carpenter. If he’s not interested, we’re definitely not into making this.’ And [executive producer] Jason Blum was totally on board with that. That’s exactly what he wanted to do anyway. So we came up with our pitch. We pitched to Carpenter, and he was into it, which kind of blew David and me away, but I still think nobody was really talking about Jamie. … I think everyone was kind of on the mindset of it’d be a grab to get her, but no one really knew if we would be able to. So Dave and I just busted our ass on this script to really make that Laurie Strode character something she wouldn’t be able to say no to. When we finished the script, we sent it to her, and she said she was in. So we just flipped out. We were over the moon about her involvement.”

For those worried that the involvement of McBride and Green, who worked together on HBO’s Vice Principals and the feature film Your Highness, meant they’d be putting a comedic spin on the franchise, don’t. McBride says there was “maybe one joke on the page,” saying the rest of the film is straight up horror. Green is a fantastic and versatile filmmaker, shifting from Pineapple Express to Prince Avalanche to the terrific 2017 release Stronger, and I can’t wait to see what he and McBride have put together.

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Image via HBO
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Image via IFC Films
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Image via Universal