Universal Delays Nia DaCosta’s Candyman Til 2021
Universal Pictures has chosen again delay the release of Nia DaCosta’s Candyman from its latest October release date to an unspecified 2021 date.
Oscar winner Jordan Peele (Us) 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 and co-writes this contemporary incarnation of the cult classic. The cast includes Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Colman Domingo, and Vanessa Williams.
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) and his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright (Teyonah Parris), 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) 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 wave of violence that puts him on a collision course with destiny.
Universal Pictures presents, from Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures and Monkeypaw Productions, in association with BRON Creative, Candyman. Candyman is directed by DaCosta, and produced by Ian Cooper (Us), Monkeypaw President Win Rosenfeld and Jordan 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.
