Trivia: The three victims of Michael found in the playground are wearing masks that look exactly like the ones from Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
Trivia: Spoilers: The original ending featured Laurie calling her daughter and hearing Michael breathing... thus realizing her daughter was dead. Laurie then walks out of the hospital holding a knife, presumably on her way to face Michael. However, this ending was cut short at the last minute, when director David Gordon Green and the writers decided that the next film would feature a time-jump ahead. They didn't want to give the impression that the next film took place immediately after.
Trivia: With this film, Jamie Lee Curtis has surpassed Donald Pleasance as the actor with the most on-screen performances in the franchise. Pleasance appeared as Dr. Loomis in "Halloween," "Halloween 2," "Halloween 4," "Halloween 5," and "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers." Curtis has appeared as Laurie Strode in "Halloween," "Halloween 2," "Halloween H20," "Halloween Resurrection," "Halloween (2018) " and "Halloween Kills," and will reprise the role again in 2022's "Halloween Ends."
Trivia: Contrary to popular belief, the cameo from Dr. Loomis was not achieved through CGI. Turns out one of the crew-members (Tom Jones Jr.) actually looked a great deal like the late Donald Pleasance, who played Loomis. They simply threw some small prosthetic pieces and a hair-piece on him, and he looked virtually identical to Loomis in the original movie. He was then dubbed over in post-production by a voice actor doing a (pretty spot-on) impression of Pleasance.
Trivia: Was originally meant to be filmed back-to-back with the third film, "Halloween Ends," but the idea was dropped due to scheduling conflicts.
Trivia: "Halloween Kills" has a bizarre celebrity cameo hidden in it. In one scene, a yearbook photo of the character "Bob" from the original film is shown. However, the production crew couldn't find an actual high-school photo of the actor who played Bob in the original movie. Coincidentally, they happened to see a yearbook picture of actor/comedian Bob Odenkirk and realised that as a teenager, he looked just like the actor who played Bob. So the crew ended up using the photo of Odenkirk instead.
Trivia: The film was released in theaters and on the streaming platform Peacock simultaneously. This is because producer Jason Blum's previous 2020 film "Freaky" underperformed at the box office due to extreme COVID-19 restrictions. Blum felt that releasing it both in theaters and on Peacock would allow fans who couldn't go to the theater the chance to see it. The decision was met with some backlash from the industry. Thankfully, the film still performed well in theaters, grossing over $100 million.
Answer: The flashback occurs some time after the ending of the first movie. They likely just separated in the meantime.
TedStixon