Art the Clown may seem unstoppable, but that doesn’t mean the Terrifier franchise is going to continue forever. The horror series’ creator, writer-director Damien Leone, has confirmed as much.
“My big fear is of going on too long and wearing out my welcome,” the filmmaker confessed in an interview with SFX Magazine. “I want to have a solid franchise, whether it be a trilogy – or maybe a quadrilogy if I have one more in mind – where it starts, where it ends, and you can walk away with a satisfying conclusion and closure and say that was pretty cool.”
Like Halloween, Friday the 13th, and dozens of other classic horror properties before it, the Terrifier franchise has emerged as an unlikely success in the eight years since its first installment was released in 2016. That film, which Leone directed with a shoestring budget of just $35,000, went on to gross over $416,000 at the box office. Six years later, Terrifier 2 raked in over $15 million over the course of its theatrical run in 2022.
Now, Terrifier 3 is set to hit theaters in just a few short weeks. Set during the Christmas season, the new film sees David Howard Thornton’s Art the Clown return to wreak more chaos and carnage — this time whilst donning a red Santa suit. The sequel seems primed, in other words, to continue pushing its franchise’s already well-tested limits of both gore and pitch-black humor.
Whether or not Terrifier 3 will be able to replicate its predecessor’s success two years ago is impossible to predict. However, even if it matches or surpasses Terrifier 2 at the box office, it doesn’t sound like fans should expect to see too much more of Art the Clown. During his conversation with SFX Magazine, Leone was asked if he envisions a potential fourth Terrifier film as being the franchise’s final installment.
“I think so,” he said. “I have the whole story mapped out. I had it mapped out since part two, honestly, which is huge. Knowing where you’re going to end it is probably the hardest thing and I figured out the ending to this a while ago.”
Only time will tell what conclusion Leone has in mind for his horror franchise, but one can only assume it’ll involve Thornton’s Art, as well as his sword-wielding final girl nemesis, Lauren LaVera’s Sienna Shaw. For now, though, it sounds like Terrifier fans should just focus on enjoying their remaining time in the franchise’s surreal, bloody world as much as they can before they ultimately have to say goodbye to it.
Terrifier 3 hits theaters on Friday, October 11.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.