John Carpenter is Ready to End his 10-year Directing Hiatus

John Carpenter is again hinting at directing a new movie.

Carpenter is telling the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that he has a few projects “lined up and percolating” that will involve him flexing his skills as a director, writer and composer.

If you remember, at last year’s Cannes, Carpenter admitted that he wanted to “make a little horror film. Detailing specifically what he had in mind, Carpenter said “I’d love to make a little horror film that would be great or a big adventure film. It would be a project that I like that’s budgeted correctly. Nowadays they make these young directors do movie for $2 million when the movie is written for $10 million. So you have to squeeze it all in there and I don’t want to do that anymore.”

The 74-year-old writer-director hasn’t made a film since 2010’s “The Ward.” That one was met with negative reaction but, ironically enough, ever since his sabbatical began, Carpenter’s filmography has resonated with younger filmmakers.

Carpenter’s imprint can be found all around the Indie horror wave currently happening. After all, when you’ve directed films such as “Halloween,” “The Thing,” “Escape From New York,” “Assault on Precinct 13,” and “They Live” then you should probably expect that. All of these films weren’t that well-received 30-40 years ago, it’s only recently that Carpenter’s filmography has received a much-needed reappraisal, so much so that a new film by him would now be deemed a major event for cinephiles.

Carpenter told Collider when asked about why he has taken time off, “I made a lot of movies and I got burned out and I had to stop for a while. I have to have a life. Circumstance would have to be correct for me to do it again,” he added.