With Tenet’s muted box office and Warner Bros‘ decision to move Wonder Woman 1984 to December 25, other studios are beginning to take note. Universal has decided to push the Jordan Peele-produced, Nia DaCosta-helmed reboot of Candyman to an undisclosed date in 2021. Many fans were hoping the Chicago-produced film would find its way to VOD and PVOD platforms, but the studio is sticking to a theatrical release.
Shortly after the announcement, DaCosta took to Twitter to explain the thinking behind Candyman‘s push to next year and passing on VOD.
“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. It’s about the collective experience of trauma and joy, suffering and triumph, and the stories we tell around it.”— Nia DaCosta (@NiaDaCosta) September 12, 2020
DaCosta’s Twitter account has since been taken down. Was it Candyman?
Other studios, looking at you Disney and Marvel, have not said whether they will push their major tentpoles back. As of right now, Marvel’s Black Widow is still scheduled to open on November 6. Don’t hold your breath.
ALSO READ: HBO launches LOVECRAFT COUNTRY: SANCTUM, VR
Don’t say his name.
This summer, Oscar® winner Jordan Peele unleashes a fresh take on the blood-chilling urban legend that your friend’s older sibling probably told you about at a sleepover: Candyman. Rising filmmaker Nia DaCosta (Little Woods) directs this contemporary incarnation of the cult classic. For as long as residents can remember, the housing projects of Chicago’s Cabrini Green neighborhood were terrorized by a word-of-mouth ghost story about a supernatural killer with a hook for a hand, easily summoned by those daring to repeat his name five times into a mirror.
In present day, a decade after the last of the Cabrini towers were torn down, visual artist Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II; HBO’s Watchmen, Us) and his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright (Teyonah Parris; If Beale Street Could Talk, The Photograph), move into a luxury loft condo in Cabrini, now gentrified beyond recognition and inhabited by upwardly mobile millennials. With Anthony’s painting career on the brink of stalling, a chance encounter with a Cabrini Green old-timer (Colman Domingo; HBO’s Euphoria, Assassination Nation) exposes Anthony to the tragically horrific nature of the true story behind Candyman. 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.
From Universal Pictures and Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures, in association with BRON Creative, and Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld’s Monkeypaw Productions, Candyman is directed by DaCosta, and is produced by Ian Cooper (Us), Rosenfeld and Peele. The screenplay is by Peele & Rosenfeld and DaCosta. The film is based on the 1992 film Candyman, written by Bernard Rose, and the short story “The Forbidden” by Clive Barker. The film’s executive producers are David Kern, Aaron L. Gilbert and Jason Cloth.
SOURCE: Twitter
