[Interview] ‘Halloween 6’ Writer Daniel Farrands on the Producer’s Cut Finally Coming Home
On September 29, 1995, the sixth entry in the Halloween movie franchise Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers opened in theaters. Today, 19 years later, we are celebrating last week’s first ever official release of the original version of the film, known as the “Producer’s Cut”, as part of the epic Complete Collection Blu-ray box set (read our review).
Just yesterday, we talked to Halloween 6 writer Daniel Farrands extensively about both cuts of the film, the long road for the Producer’s Cut to finally get its proper release, and his involvement in the future of the franchise. You can check out a preview of our chat with Farrands below, and then come back in October for the full interview!
We asked Daniel how it came to be that the Producer’s Cut is now finally available, beautifully restored from the original negatives and audio, and he told us that it has been a very long time coming, the result of years of determination and dedication from himself and the fans that demanded it.
“I was the guy who was always championing this alternate version for going on 20 years,” Farrands explains. “I was the guy that was always participating in the fan petitions online and letter writing campaigns, and always sort of directing people to the appropriate executives and departments of the various studios.
“I think initially there was an ego thing where the studio didn’t want to admit there was another version because that would force them to admit that they made a mistake and that this other version was better and better liked by fans. For many years I think that was part of the hurdles that we faced.
“They just didn’t want to acknowledge that there was a different cut. Of course that was in the days before there was special editions and alternate cuts and director’s cuts. There was Criterion laserdisc, but there wasn’t much else.
“Then the studios and properties changed hands. Miramax was owned by Disney when we made that film, and when Disney parted ways with the Weinsteins, essentially the Weinsteins had the rights to do more sequels, but the already existing sequels (made by Miramax) like ours and H20 were retained there (at Disney).”
“Then it was just years of me trying to convince Disney that there was a reason to do this, and Disney’s not interested in anything but Aladdin and all the Disney franchises that are important to them. Things like this frankly weren’t important. These were library titles that they inherited and they didn’t really care much.
“Then the rights changed again when an investor group came in and bought the Miramax library from Disney, and among those titles was Halloween 6 and all these other sequels that were made under Miramax. It took a long time to kind of get in with those guys, and I spent several years making overtures to them, and that didn’t get me anywhere.
“Then Echo Bridge took over the title, so there’s been this endless cycle of changing hands and people kind of resisting it or not really having much interest. We came close a time or two but it just didn’t transpire for whatever reason.
“Then last year, my buddy Brian Collins came to me and said he was going to do a screening at the New Beverly and he wanted me to be there, so I asked why he wasn’t showing the Producer’s Cut. I said, ‘There is at least one print, I know that for a fact.’
“I started making calls to Malek Akkad and he did me a solid and called the new Miramax people and put it in their ear that there is the other version and there’s a print there that’s just been gathering dust. Ultimately they said yes.
“The screening sold out in like a day. Certainly at that point, everyone knew we had something on our hands that was unique and different and interesting.
“I think a lot people consider that version of the movie sort of the Holy Grail of all things Halloween.”
We also asked the writer when he first found out that this unprecedented Complete Collection would finally become a reality.
“I found out probably around spring of this year,” Daniel told us. “It was very ‘mum’s the word’. Everyone was sworn to absolute secrecy. We couldn’t talk about it. We couldn’t hint about it. It was very top secret, you know, within closed doors being discussed.
“Very early on it was put to me that they wanted the Producer’s Cut to be part of it.
“Scream Factory is made up of fellow horror geeks. Those guys love the genre, they love these movies, they know every detail of them, so it’s not a huge stretch to think that they would know about that version.
“They really understood what this was and they were the first people to come along and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to make this happen’. They made good, and I’m very grateful that they did, because here it is.”
Farrands sounds honestly as excited as most of the fans we have heard from about this killer collection, and I know you are going to love reading much more of our extended and very candid conversation when the full interview is published in October.
Read Part 2 of interview with Daniel Farrands here.
Both the theatrically released version and the much anticipated Producer’s Cut are available together for the first time as part of the new Halloween: The Complete Collection 15-disc Deluxe Edition Blu-ray box set from Anchor Bay and Scream Factory, which you can order here!
You can read our review of The Complete Collection here to learn more about why this is such a monumental release and how the infamous Producer’s Cut is the crown jewel.
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