The Candyman movie made the titular character arguably the greatest black horror villain ever, but in Clive Barker's original story, he was white. While he's not quite the crossover superstar that Stephen King is, Barker is still one of the most popular horror authors in recent memory. Barker's signature blending of mature adult themes, extreme gore, and unconventional but provocative sexuality has led to the creation of countless captivating stories by the British scribe.

Barker has also made quite the mark on the world of pop culture at large, writing and directing three feature films that have all gone on to amass large fanbases, and serving as a producer or executive producer on many other movie adaptations of his work. One such adaptation was Candyman, and while Barker gives full credit to director Bernard Rose for how the now iconic film came out, the author did work with Rose in shaping things creatively as the project progressed, and has nothing bad to say about it.

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However, that doesn't mean Candyman is entirely faithful to the Clive Barker short story it's based on, entitled The Forbidden. In fact, it's different in some big ways, including the fact that Candyman was originally a white man.

Candyman Was Originally White - Here's Why The Character Changed

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While the Candyman movie is still recognizably an adaptation of Clive Barker's story The Forbidden, it deviates from the source material in two major ways. The first is that Barker's story is set in the slums of Liverpool, which makes sense, given the author's British heritage. The second is that Candyman in The Forbidden is a white man, with a skin tint that leans toward yellow, to the point where Helen Lyle refers to him as looking jaundiced. He also wears a jacket and pants that are described as being a multi-colored patchwork, as opposed to the long coat worn by Tony Todd in the film. Candyman's backstory isn't delved into in the book.

It was writer/director Bernard Rose that opted to make Candyman black for the movie adaptation, with the change accompanying Rose's decision to shift the action from the UK to the US. Rose chose Chicago for his setting after visiting the city for a film festival, and narrowed things to Cabrini Green due to the extremely high murder rate in that area at the time, and the deplorable conditions its almost entirely black residents were forced to live in. Once those choices had been made, it naturally made sense to swap Candyman's race from white to black. From there, Rose - along with Todd himself - expanded upon Candyman's backstory, adding to Helen and Candyman's dynamic by having it connect to his tragic, racially-charged origin.

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