John Carpenter Ready to End his 10 year Directing Hiatus — Cannes

John Carpenter was honored by the Quinzaine yesterday. A special screening of his 1982 body-horror masterpiece “The Thing” was followed by a Q&A with the horror director.

The event was mostly what you would call by-the-books, but it was great to see the 71-year-old filmmaker hinting that he would soon come back and “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.”

Carpenter hasn’t directed a film since the release of the 2010 effort, “The Ward.” That film was met will negative reaction but, ironically enough, ever since his sabbatical began, Carpenter’s past works have resonated deeply with younger filmmakers this decade. His imprints can be seen all around the Indie horror wave currently happening. After all, when you’ve directed films such as “Halloween,” “The Thing,” “Escape From New York,” and “They Live” then you should probably expect your films to age like fine wine.

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.