1966 to 2022.

Star Trek airs

Shatner says a clay cast of his face was made during the series so he "wouldn't have to be available for the prosthetics."

Sources 1

The Devil's Rain is shot

Filmed in Durango and Mexico City with makeup effects by Tom Burman. Several sources say the Shatner life cast used for the Kirk mask was taken here.

Sources 234

The Devil's Rain is released

Sources 2

Don Post Studios releases its Star Trek line

Kirk, Spock, a Mugato, a Gorn and the salt vampire, under a Paramount license. Kirk and Spock are sculpted by Bill Malone.

Sources 567

The Kirk mask reaches catalogs and sells poorly

The discontinuation year varies by source, from 1976 to about 1979.

Sources 896

Halloween is shot

AFI: principal photography began April 24, 1978 and ran four weeks; Wikipedia: 20 days in May. Tommy Lee Wallace buys and modifies the Kirk mask.

Sources 101112

Halloween is released

Kansas City premiere October 24 (Wikipedia); Los Angeles October 25 and wide release October 27 (AFI).

Sources 1110

Halloween II reuses the mask; Don Post is refused a license

Dick Warlock wears the original mask. Rick Sternbach finds a leftover Don Post Kirk mask and the company identifies it by model number. Don Post Studios asks the filmmakers for a Michael Myers license and is turned down.

Sources 131415

Halloween III: Don Post makes the masks

Don Post Studios is credited for the film's masks and gets shared merchandising profits. Wallace, who directed, says Post did these but not the 1978 mask.

Sources 1612

Don Post's "The Mask"

Don Post hires Neil Surges to sculpt from the Shatner foam master; "The Mask" is marketed from 1986, unlicensed, flesh-toned at first and white within a year.

Sources 15

Two copyright applications

The first is rejected as a derivative work; a second, which omits the film and the Kirk mask, is granted.

Sources 15

The first licensed Michael Myers mask

Cinema Secrets gets a non-exclusive license; Don Post sues that fall.

Sources 1517

Don Post Studios v. Cinema Secrets

Judge Eduardo C. Robreno finds Don Post's mask is a copy of the film's mask and its copyright invalid.

Sources 15

Fees awarded against Don Post

The suit is called "frivolous, objectively unreasonable"; Cinema Secrets is awarded attorney's fees.

Sources 18

The screen-used mask changes hands

Collector Mark Roberts buys it from Dick Warlock, about fourteen years before a 2017 report.

Sources 19

Shatner's earliest public acknowledgment found

Fans recall him raising the mask on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and in videos on his own website.

Sources 20

Shatner: trick-or-treating in the mask

In a video with his daughter he says he once went trick-or-treating in a Myers mask.

Sources 2122

Don Post Studios closes

Sources 23

Wallace films the conversion, step by step

Recorded by Sean Clark for the Halloween: The Complete Collection box set; released online in 2020.

Sources 2425

Trick or Treat Studios recreates the 1975 Kirk mask

Announced August 2016, revealed January 2017, sculpted by Justin Mabry under a CBS license.

Sources 262728

Shatner tweets about the life cast

"I don't believe it was Devil's Rain as the mask was a licensed product that came out the same year so it was probably an earlier mask."

Sources 29

Shatner tells EW about trick-or-treating

"I'd wear the mask. If [people] didn't give them candy, I'd take off the mask, and blow a kiss." And: "I don't have a piece of the film."

Sources 3031

Shatner tweets again

"The lifecast that created the mask may have been from that movie but the Star Trek mask was created & sold in 1975."

Sources 32

"Is that a joke? Are they kidding?"

Shatner tells FOX 32 Chicago the cast was made "on Star Trek" for prosthetics and that he recognized the mask as "the death mask that they had made for me."

Sources 1

James Winburn dies at 85

The stunt performer who wore the mask for the balcony fall in 1978.

Sources 33