Happy Death DaystarJessica Rotheremains hopeful for Tree’s return in athird film in the horror franchise. During a recent conversation withScreenGeek, while promoting her new action flickBoy Kills World, Rothe opened up about the status of a follow-up film in theHappyDeath Dayuniverse. Rothe starred in the original 2017 film and its sequel,Happy Death Day 2U, as Tree Gelbman, a college student stuck in a hellish “Groundhog Day” who keeps reliving her own murder.
“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 deserves her third and final chapter to bring that incredible character and franchise to a close or a new beginning.”
Rothe has long been hopeful forHappy Death Day 3, a follow-up film to 2019’sHappy Death Day 2U, which left the door open for a future film that could explore the quantum physics experiments and their consequences. Rothe has expressed her adoration for the Tree and has said that she would be open to reprising the character when the opportunity arises, even if that meanspulling “a Jamie Lee Curtis from Halloween"and coming “back as a badass 50-year-old.”
Director Hints at Flexible Happy Death Day Sequel
Happy Death Day 2U
The film’s fans may have to wait for Blumhouse and Universal to get their “ducks in a row,” but Rothe’s optimism is a bright spot, considering what wepreviously heard about a third filmwas rather disappointing. Early last year, Landon shared:
“No movement at all, sadly. There was a tiny moment where I really felt like I had Universal’s attention, but they forgot about me. [laughs] I think it’s a really tough one for them, and I’m being really blunt and honest in that the first movie was very successful. It made a lot of money. It was well-received. And the sequel was not. The sequel is loved by people who have seen it, but it did not make a lot of money, and it was not a success for them. So it’s very hard to motivate them to make a third movie when the last one just didn’t perform.
Those are the hard economics of the business. So I don’t know what it would take. There was talk for a minute of it maybe being a Peacock thing. Maybe. Maybe one day. The beauty of it is that my idea, the whole idea for the third movie, is not dependent on any sort of specific window or timeframe. So I could make it any time, but I mean, as the years draw past, I feel like our chances are dimming.”
Happy Death Daygrossed a worldwide total of $125.5 million against a production budget of just $4.8 million. However, its sequel,Happy Death Day 2U, couldn’t quite capture the same box office magic, bringing in just $64.5 million despite a larger $9 million budget.
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Rothe can now be seen in Moritz Mohr’sBoy Kills Worldalongside Bill Skarsgård, Michelle Dockery, Famke Janssen, Sharlto Copley, Brett Gelman, Isaiah Mustafa, and Andrew Koji. The action thriller follows Boy (Skarsgard), a deaf person with a vibrant imagination. When his family is murdered, he is trained by a mysterious shaman to repress his childish imagination and become an instrument of death.
Boy Kills Worldis now in theaters.
