The Halloween franchise has been eliminating people (in the films, of course) for more than four decades, from 1978 to 2022. And while its second most recent installment, Halloween Kills, didn’t get the best of reviews from the audiences, it did feature quite some spooky stuff (besides the usual spooky Halloween stuff). Like featuring Better Call Saul‘s lead star, Bob Odenkirk—by sheer coincidence.
Though most fans must obviously be unaware of it, Odenkirk did, in fact, make a surprising cameo appearance in the 2021 horror crime in a blink-and-you-miss-it moment: as a young version of John Michael Graham’s Bob Simms!
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Halloween Kills Featured Bob Odenkirk… By Accident!
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Even though Bob Odenkirk was never officially cast in the twelfth installment of the Halloween franchise, 2021’s Halloween Kills, he somehow made his way to star in the movie.
It all started with the bar scene in the movie. In that, the residents of Haddonfield had gathered in the bar to remember the horrific night of 1978 when Michael Myers returned home for the first time. During that, a news report alerted them about a new series of killings, calling back to the killings 40 years prior as well.
Among all the pictures displayed on the television screen in that scene, one was of P J Soles’ Lynda, while the other was a nerdy high school yearbook image of her sweet deceased beau, Bob Odenkirk’s Bob Simms.
We know what you’re thinking: Bob Odenkirk was in the original 1978 Halloween movie?! Well, no. But his childhood picture, back from probably high school, did appear in the 2021 thriller as Simms, the character who was originally played by John Michael Graham in the first installment of the franchise.
Now do you get what we meant by Bob Odenkirk giving his cameo appearance in Halloween Kills? Truth be told, as surprising as it is, it is also a rather amusing one. But what’s more amusing is the back story of using Odenkirk’s picture instead of Graham’s original one!
Also Read: Here’s How Halloween Kills Links Michael Myers To Mike Myers
Why Was There A Bob Odenkirk Cameo In Halloween Kills
Now, the question arises: Was this done purposefully by the filmmakers to add in a sneaky blink-and-you-miss-it cameo of Bob Odenkirk? The answer is quite simple: Nope. And the story behind this ‘how’ that further arises is a rather unbelievably wild one.
As it turns out, the filmmakers didn’t have access to any of John Michael Graham’s pictures that could fit accurately in a news report. But they had to get one anyway. So they went on to search a Google image instead for high school photos of that period. And that’s when they came across young Odenkirk’s picture, which they felt resembled Graham the most.
But one barrier was still yet to be broken: taking Bob Odenkirk’s permission to use his nerdy young image. As weird and awkward as it might have been, director David Gordon Green still hit up the Better Call Saul star’s manager, who is said to have passed on the request to the actor as (via Halloween: The Official Making of Halloween, Halloween Kills, and Halloween Ends):
“I’ve never met him, but I think that’s got to be the weirdest phone call. ‘Bob, we want to use your photo on a news broadcast from high school.'”
Somehow, Odenkirk agreed, and we can bet he still gets a kick every time he looks at that nerdy yearbook photograph of himself on the big screen or in Halloween Kills!
