‘The Collector 3’ Gets a Promising Update From Franchise Director

The Big Picture

• The Collector 3 is finally in development after a long wait, with assurances that it will be worth it.
• Ownership rights issues have been resolved, allowing progress on the sequel to move forward.
• Director Marcus Dunstan promises a quality film, cautioning that production will not be rushed.

They say patience is a virtue. Should you possess that virtue and equally hold one particular horror franchise at heart – then this should be exciting news. It has taken well over a decade, but The Collector 3 is back in development. The upcoming film is a sequel to the 2009 horror movie The Collector and its follow-up, The Collection. Initially announced in 2014, development on The Collected revved up and shut down four years later. Despite a brief attempt at filming in 2019, the sequel has largely endured a gruesome time in development hell.

However, franchise co-writer and director Marcus Dunstan has revealed that the wheels are turning once more on the project, suggesting that ownership rights for the franchise were a prior stumbling block to progress. Speaking in an interview with The Direct, Dunstan revealed that The Collected sequel is now back on. The director goes on to reveal that ownership rights previously slowed down the momentum, but as reassurance, added, “the legal elements holding it back were all alleviated.” The director does caution patience, noting that production will not be rushed in order to birth the best possible version of the film.

Dunstan’s comments read:

“As of about four days ago, the legal elements holding it back were all alleviated. And it is coming back, I can tell you. Shout it loud and proud: The Collector is coming back. It is free. It is going to be a barreling freight train for your mind of fear. Yes, we can do it right! …Right away, I want to say, courtesy of a gentleman named Todd, who’s spent five years getting these rights all sorted out, It’s coming back. And we’re not bringing it back until it’s something that we feel is the best one. And that we feel is in honor of the time we’ve been waiting because we haven’t been waiting on the bench just staring at the sky. We’ve been conceiving and concocting. Yeah, here it comes. And we want to honor this opportunity with something great.”

Who Worked On ‘The Collection’?

It’s been over a decade since the last film in the franchise, The Collection, which was co-written by Dunstan and Patrick Melton (Saw IV, V, VI), with Dunstan directing. The 2012 sequel centered on a woman abducted by a psychopathic killer and taken to a hotel that the killer had transformed into his own private killer maze. In response, the lady’s wealthy father hires a group of mercenaries to retrieve her with the expert help of the only man who had ever escaped the killer’s den. Described as “a suspense horror film with nonstop thrills at every turn,” according to the official synopsis. The Collection stars Emma Fitzpatrick (The Social Network), Josh Stewart (The Dark Knight Rises), and Christopher McDonald.

The Collector is available to stream on Prime Video. Stay tuned to Collider for updates.

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