There’s arguably no bigger horror movie brand of the last 15 years than Blumhouse. While they have a handful of misses, they’ve delivered franchises like Paranormal Activity, Insidious, Five Nights at Freddy’s, and The Black Phone, along with dozens of other standalone tales of terror. Despite the storytelling potential of many of their films, some of their series have run out of a bit of steam up on the big screen, though Entertainment Weekly confirms today that this isn’t the end of the line for those titles.
Through a new partnership with IDW Dark, The Purge, M3GAN, and Happy Death Dayare all set to continue as comic series. The initiative will start next year with The Purge in a series from Eisner award–winning writer Dan Watters (Batman: Dark Patterns, TMNT: Shredder) and artist Juan José Ryp (Wolverine: Blood Hunt, Ghost Rider: Vengeance Forever).
“I’m a really big horror nerd. It was my entry point into comics and geeky stuff to begin with,” Watters shared with the outlet. “I can’t tell you anything about Star Trek, can’t tell you anything about Star Wars, but I can tell you about every Friday the 13thmovie and I can rank them for you. So once we started talking about the fact that there was this Blumhouse stuff in the works, I immediately went, ‘Well, what about Purge?’”
No details about the book’s plot have been released, though IDW Dark lead editor Heather Antos has met with the filmmakers behind the respective franchises. To date, there have been five The Purge movies and two seasons of The Purge TV series, with the last live-action release being 2021’s The Forever Purge.
There have also been no details released about the Happy Death Day comic, though Antos has met with filmmaker Christopher Landon to learn his plans for a Happy Death Day 3. The editor confirmed that the comic continuation does not take the place of a third movie, which Landon and star Jessica Rothe still hope to make.
“He got to tell me exactly what his plan is for Happy Death Day 3, should they ever get to do it,” Antos confirmed. “Are there ways in the comics that we can lean into that while also leaving room for them to tell the story that they want to tell should they get to?”
M3GAN, meanwhile, got off to a strong start with the debut movie in 2023, both financially and critically, though the sequel M3GAN 2.0and spin-off SOULM8TEhad lackluster receptions. At this point, there are no confirmed plans for another live-action installment in the series, which is where IDW Dark can really embrace the madness of the concept.
“The world needs more M3GAN stories,” Antos noted. “She can do anything and go anywhere that we want her to. She has that uncanny valley appeal to her that works really, really well in the horror franchise. She is Katie’s companion. As Katie continues to get older, M3GAN is going to have to go with her to different things. So that means high school, that means all the things that go along with high school.”
She added, “I really want M3GAN at prom … I don’t know if we’ll get to do that, but I just personally want that. We’re talking with a writer that I think folks are gonna be really excited to see their name appear alongside M3GAN.”
The Purge is expected to be released sometime in 2027, with more titles to be announced in the future.
What do you think of the series continuing in comic form? Let us know in the comments below!
