Jordan Peele and Nia DaCosta's Candyman pushed to 2021
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You can say his name all you want, because Candyman won't be summoned this year after all.
Universal has delayed Nia DaCosta's "contemporary incarnation" of the beloved horror film until 2021. Originally set to hit theaters in June, the film was pushed to September and then October due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While movie theaters in the U.S. have begun to reopen, many remain closed in light of the virus, especially in major markets such as New York and Los Angeles. Although Universal has been the quickest among the major studios to embrace VOD distribution for its films, the studio still plans to release Candyman theatrically and is "currently assessing optimal release dates," according to a news release.
Parrish Lewis/Universal Pictures and MGM Pictures
"We made Candyman to be seen in theaters. Not just for the spectacle but because the film is about community and stories — how they shape each other, how they shape us," DaCosta, who co-wrote and directed the film, wrote on Twitter Saturday. "It’s about the collective experience of trauma and joy, suffering and triumph, and the stories we tell around it. We wanted the horror and humanity of Candyman to be experienced in a collective, a community, so we’re pushing Candyman to next year, to ensure that everyone can see the film, in theaters, and share in that experience."
Produced and co-written by Jordan Peele, Candyman is a spiritual sequel to the 1992 cult classic, starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as an artist named Anthony McCoy, who moves into a luxury loft in the formerly run-down Chicago neighborhood of Cabrini-Green. With Anthony's painting career on the brink of stalling, a chance encounter with a Cabrini-Green old-timer (Colman Domingo) exposes Anthony to the true story behind Candyman, a supernatural killer with a hook for a hand. Anxious to maintain his status in the Chicago art world, Anthony begins to explore these macabre details in his studio as fresh grist for paintings, unknowingly opening a door to a complex past that unravels his own sanity and unleashes a terrifyingly viral wave of violence that puts him on a collision course with destiny.
"My connection with Candyman is pretty simple," Peele said at a screening of the film's trailer in Los Angeles earlier this year. "It was one of the few movies that explored any aspect of the Black experience in the horror genre in the '90s, when I was growing up. It was an iconic example to me of representation in the genre and a movie that inspired me."
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