While many agree that The Haunting of Bly Manor didn't quite manage to pack the punch of The Haunting of Hill House, there are many fans who would still like to the see The Haunting horror anthology series return for another round. Although there are still no plans in motion with Netflix for that to happen, Mike Flanagan would be more than happy to return for more if he can find the right story to tell that fits with the feel of the previous two seasons. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, while talking about his new series Midnight Mass, he explained a little more about how he would return to the popular franchise.

Asked about whether there had been any movement on a new season of The Haunting of series, Flanagan reiterated what he said in an interview back in December last year. Although he has many plans on his slate, that is not one of them at the moment, but he did say that there was every possibility that a new story would be told if he and production partner Trevor Macy were able to find the right bit of gothic fiction to continue the franchise with. Flanagan said that "one of the things that define the Haunting anthology for me is that both of them so far are about updating and riffing on existing classic literature."

Although you would think of all the fiction out there something would stand out, but for Mike Flanagan the story also has to fit in with the overarching theme of ghosts and human guilt and trauma being connected, which is perhaps not as popular a storyline to track down. He continued saying, "if the stars align in such a way that we decide to go back into the Haunting world, it would have to be so much on that track that we've set up. It would have to be with the right piece of IP, it would have to be with the right ghost-centric story, and it would have to really fit with Bly and Hill House."

While there are plenty of authors similar to Henry James and Shirley Jackson, whose work the first two seasons were loosely based on, it seems that Flanagan is certainly not about to rush into another chapter just because he has two popular runs under his belt. At least it suggests that when a third season does arrive, it will surely have been worth the wait.

In the meantime, Flanagan is powering ahead with a number of projects, including the Christopher Pike novel The Midnight Club which is expected to arrive on Netflix later next year, and of course his current offering of Midnight Mass, which comes to Netflix on September 24th and, as per the synopsis, "tells the tale of a small, isolated island community whose existing divisions are amplified by the return of a disgraced young man (Zach Gilford) and the arrival of a charismatic priest (Hamish Linklater). When Father Paul's appearance on Crockett Island coincides with unexplained and seemingly miraculous events, a renewed religious fervor takes hold of the community - but do these miracles come at a price?" This news originated at Entertainment Weekly.