Terrifier 4 is a given – but Damien Leone has a final plan for Art the Clown, as he plots an ending for the psychotic character.
It’s been a case of champagne corks among the blood and guts where the Terrifier franchise is concerned. Over the weekend, writer/director Damien Leone’s Terrifier 3 soared to the top of the US box office, the $3m-budgeted picture landing $14.1m in takings. It’s the kind of franchise that Hollywood studios resist, but might be wishing they didn’t.
Still, the keys to the saga, and the character arc of Art the Clown, are in the hands of Damien Leone, and he’d already been talking up plans for Terrifier 4 ahead of the release of his new film. Now though, in a chat with Variety, he’s revealed that he has an ending in sight for Art the Clown, and likely the saga entirely.
“Personally I can’t see it going further than one or two more films”, he admitted, “but only time will tell”. The wheels may well have been greased somewhat by a weekend’s takings in one country that’s brought in three times the production cost of all the Terrifier movies to date. Still, “all I can say with certainty is that I know it ends, and it will be epic”, Leone teased.
Horror fans of course will know the drill. It’s over 30 years since the Nightmare On Elm Street saga was set to come to a close with Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, and, well, it wasn’t. If people keep watching Terrifier films, and they regularly end up making tens of millions of dollars? Well, it’s hard to see the franchise stopping. Although for Damien Leone, he presumably has the keys to a mix of new projects now he’s got a chart-topping hit under his blood-soaked belt.
The tale of the first Terrifier, which includes a crowdfund campaign that fell a long way short of its target, is told in the Film Stories podcast.
