Keep holding on, Happy Death Day fans; we may still get that trilogy closer we’ve been waiting on since 2019’s sequel, Happy Death Day 2U.
Speaking at the Toronto Film Festival 2026 at the Bisha Hotel in Toronto, star Jessica Rothe, promoting her new horror movie River, in which she stars with fellow final girl Jane Levy, star of 2013’s Evil Dead movie, teased that the third chapter in the Happy Death Day series is ready to film… they just need money.
The actress revealed that her and franchise writer/director Christopher Landon put their heads together and now know the story they have to tell to bring main character Tree’s (Rothe) time-travelling/horror turmoil to an end.
TIdbit:
First look at Jessica Rothe and Evil Dead (2013) star Jane Levy in new slasher movie, River:
“So, Chris Landon and I have actually broken the whole story, which was really fun,” she said, “We went to an undisclosed location—a Le Pain Quotidien in between our houses—and sat there for hours and broke the third movie. And now, we’re just waiting for Universal and Blumhouse to [give us] just a little money.”
The Happy Death Day series merges time-travel with slasher horror in 2017’s first installment, which sees Rothe as Tree, a college student who is self-centred and unlikable, but when she’s murdered by the Babyface Killer, above, she wakes up at the beginning of her Death Day and, in true Groundhog Day style, has to work out who her killer is and why they want her dead and along the way, she becomes a much better person.
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The sequel in 2019 modelled itself more on Back to the Future than Groundhog Day but built out the lore and set out explaining what was happening to Tree and why, but there’s a third story yet to be told to put the world, and time, to rights.
I’m a pretty big fan of this series and really feel that Rothe is a very often neglected final girl when ‘best of’ lists are being drawn up, so hopefully a third movie will right that wrong as well as giving us more of this very fun universe.
Rothe’s new movie, River, is from director Joshua Giuliano and is set to get a release pretty soon.
Watch Rothe make her comments:
Jessica Rothe gives an update on ‘Happy Death Day 3’ | The Deadline Studio at #TIFF2026 pic.twitter.com/cb2zf4R3rC
— Deadline (@DEADLINE) September 14, 2026
Source: Deadline
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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