Jon Watts Plots a Six-Movie Clown Saga

Jon Watts might be the Spider-Man guy now, but he started his career by turning a birthday clown into a nightmare. And he is not done with that idea. With a new 4K release of his first feature, Clown, hitting in Germany, Watts says he and co-writer Christopher Ford have a whole stack of sequels mapped out. As in, seven of them. Yes, seven.

Quick refresher on Clown (and why it never quite got its moment)

• Origin story: Watts and Christopher Ford made a fake trailer for a killer clown movie and cheekily slapped Eli Roth's name on it as producer. Roth saw it, loved the audacity, and actually came on to produce the feature.
• The movie: A well-meaning dad finds a clown suit for his kid's birthday party, then learns the suit is cursed and literally turns the wearer into a murderer. Cast includes Andy Powers, Peter Stormare, Laura Allen, and Elizabeth Whitmere.
• Timeline chaos: Shot in 2012, premiered in 2014, then Dimension Films bungled the U.S. release so hard it did not hit domestic theaters until 2016.
• Box office: A very limited U.S. run nabbed about $55,000. It did better overseas, but the rollout never matched the film's potential.
• New life: A 4K Ultra HD is coming from Turbine Medien in Germany.

Watts on what Clown really was (and what he wishes he did)

Watts looks back on Clown and sees less straight-up horror and more psychological thriller. In his words, they took a ridiculous premise very seriously and wound up with something closer to a character study than a splatterfest. If he could redo it, he says he would lean harder into the horror and let the kill sequences go wilder. He even name-drops the dream version: an Evil Dead 2-style revisit that tells the same story but pushes it into much crazier territory.

For what it is worth: I remember Clown being a bit too grim for how bonkers the premise is. So the Evil Dead 2 path? That sounds like the fun version this concept was begging for.

The surprising part: he and Ford want a seven-movie Clown saga

Asked point-blank about a sequel, Watts said he and Ford already have the roadmap and would love to build a long-haul franchise, Leprechaun-style. The hook that makes it work: anyone can put on the suit, so the premise resets clean every time without losing the mythology.

He also gets into why clowns freak people out now in a way they did not always do. Post-John Wayne Gacy, clowns carry a built-in menace. Watts admits he feels a little guilty for adding to that stigma, and says there is room in their grand plan for at least one legit good clown among the demons and doom. They are treating the whole seven-part outline like an elaborate prank that might actually happen if the stars align.

"If anyone out there is interested in really doing a deep character study of what it feels like to slowly and painfully transform into an ancient clown demon, they know where to reach me."

Where Watts went after Clown

He followed Clown with the thriller Cop Car, then took a massive swing with the MCU: Spider-Man: Homecoming, Far From Home, and No Way Home. He was also at one point attached to direct The Fantastic Four: First Steps, but stepped away from superheroes and made the action comedy Wolfs instead. On TV, he has worked on FX's The Old Man and Disney+'s Star Wars: Skeleton Crew. And he has looped back to horror as a producer on Final Destination: Bloodlines, with his name on the next sequel in that franchise too.

So, are these Clown sequels actually happening?

No studio announcement yet. But between the fresh 4K release, Watts actively talking about it, and a franchise-friendly premise, the door is open. If he really goes full Evil Dead 2 with it, I am in.