Jessica Rothe has finally provided a great update about Happy Death Day 3 that horror fans will absolutely love. At the 2026 International Film Festival (TIFF), the actress spoke candidly about the future of the Happy Death Day franchise.
This comes after the first and second installments in the dark comedy slasher film series were met with tremendous reception from fans worldwide. The first film, Happy Death Day, cost roughly $4.8 million to make in 2017 and opened to $26 million domestically, going on to $125.5 million worldwide.
Meanwhile, the second film, Happy Death Day 2U, cost about $9 million to make and finished with $64.6 million. Overall, the franchise spent under $14 million on production and earned roughly $190 million back (according to Box Office Mojo).
The Happy Death Day franchise has more story to tell
As @DEADLINE on X shared, Jessica Rothe has confirmed that the Happy Death Day franchise has more story to tell. She shared that the storyline for the third installment in the fan-favorite franchise has already been decided by her and fellow filmmaker Christopher Landon.
She said, “Chris Landon and I have actually broken the whole story, which was really fun. We went to an undisclosed location—a Le Pain Quotidien in between our houses [laughs]— sat there for hours, and broke the third movie.”
However, the only problem is that the horror sequel still needs Universal and Blumhouse to make it happen. Apparently, the studios haven’t greenlit the third Happy Day Death movie just yet. As Rothe said, “Now, we’re just, you know, we’re just waiting for Universal and Blumhouse to [give us] just, like, just a little money.”
The 2017 movie was based on the self-centered college student Tree Gelbman (played by Rothe), who is murdered on her birthday, only to wake up again at the beginning of the day. As the nightmare keeps repeating itself, she has to uncover her killer’s true identity to stop the cycle once and for all.
The sequel from 2019 expands on the sci-fi element as she finds herself in a parallel universe as a result of her friend’s time-travel experiments.