At the world premiere of the recently released Terrifier 3, franchise writer/director Damien Leone said there will be a Terrifier 4 – and he later said he thinks that will be the last entry in the franchise, because he doesn’t want it to wear out his welcome. But during new interviews with Variety and Coming Soon, Leone has admitted that, if he has trouble fitting the remaining story he has in mind into a reasonable running time, he might need to make Terrifier 5 to properly wrap things up… and even then, there’s always the chance Art the Clown could return again down the line, just like his fellow slashers Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees always do.
Speaking with Coming Soon, Leone said, “No, so when I wrote part 2, I knew what the end of this franchise was. So, then it just became a matter of, ‘Well, how many puzzle pieces do I need to get from here to there?’ So it should just be one more movie unless it turns into something too big again. Because nobody could deal with, like, a two-and-a-half hour slasher film. It’s just too much to ask of people. So, I mean, if it gets out of control, who knows where it’s gonna go? It wasn’t even my intention to really announce that there was gonna be a part 4. The way that happened was we were at the Fantastic Fest screening. It was like 2:30 in the morning. We did a Q&A afterwards, and now I’m in a room with people who have eyes in their head. They’ve just seen the end of Terrifier 3, clearly it’s the most blatant Empire Strikes Back cliffhanger ending. Like, there’s gonna be another one. So the person asked me, is there gonna be more? I’m like, ‘Well, of course, there’s gonna be more.’ I would never do that to the audience. Like, how can you leave the audience there? Then next day it’s like, ‘Damian Leone Announces Terrifier 4,’ ‘Terrifier 4 Greenlit.’ This, that. I’m like, ‘Oh my God. Let’s just get through Terrifier 3.’ So, yeah, I mean, there is. You will know the end of this franchise. It is a like concrete solid sort of ending. When you see it, you’ll know what it is. You’ll know when this thing is put to bed for a while, at least. I mean, we’ve opened up the door to the supernatural, so I could always figure out a way to bring Art the Clown back if I wanted to. But I want to have a solid franchise, a saga that I could tell with a beginning, middle, and an end. You know what it is. You could walk away feeling satisfied. I don’t want to just kind of get lost in the woods and you just meandering and kind of fall into like the category of just diminishing returns, and you’re just tarnishing everything that’s come before it, or characters who you thought should have played a major part, really had nothing to do in the grand scheme of things. It’s like, ‘Well, why did I invest all that emotion, all that time and energy into what came before it?’ So I don’t wanna run into that trap, which happens to a lot of franchises. So, I think maybe one more film and that’ll really tell the story that’ll put an end to the saga for a while anyway.“
He told Variety, “There is no definitive answer at this time regarding how many more films I will make before concluding the Terrifier saga. Personally, I can’t see it going further than one or two more films, but only time will tell. For now, all I can say with certainty is that I know how it ends, and it will be epic. It will certainly be an epic showdown, an epic closure to this Art the Clown saga. The idea I’m toying with in my head would probably be in some regards the most experimental, so I can’t dive into it too much. Some really, really crazy things will happen in the next one.“
So Terrifier franchise fans can look forward to a crazy, experimental Terrifier 4 that could either wrap up the story, or lead into a Terrifier 5 that will wrap it up… and then, thanks to the supernatural, there could still be more sequels after Art takes a bit of a rest.
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