Director Nia DaCosta confirms the Candyman reboot will include the new Candyman's origin story. Starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, and Colman Domingo, Candyman is a spiritual sequel to the 1992 horror film of the same name. The film is produced by Jordan Peele's production company Monkeypaw Productions, making it his third horror film following the Oscar-nominated Get Out and the successful sophomore film Us.
The original Candyman tells the story of a Chicago graduate student writing a thesis on urban folklore, leading her to discover the legend of the Candyman (Tony Todd), a vengeful ghost of an African American man who can be summoned by saying his name five times in a mirror. The Candyman was originally Daniel Robitaille, the son of a slave who became a well-respected artist in the 19th century, but his relationship with a white woman led him to be brutally murdered by a lynch mob. Donning a wool coat and a rusty hook for a hand, the Candyman haunts and kills those who repeat his name into the mirror. Todd's Candyman has become one of horror's most iconic villains, often cited in pop culture.
While the audience saw the original Candyman already fully-formed, DaCosta says the new Candyman will undergo more of a transformation. During her "Virtual Fireside Chat" at Nightstream Fest, DaCosta revealed how the reboot will show Candyman taking his form:
In the original, he’s already a fully formed…I guess monster, we’ll say, because that’s definitely how he’s positioned in the original film, as a monster. And so, it’s really like a reveal of like, ‘Here’s my chest. I’m fully formed, I’m fully grotesque’ and in this one, we really wanted it to be a slow progression, and for me, I really wanted to trigger the response of like, you know when all of us have had a rash or something, and we’re like, hmm, what’s that? Maybe it’s a heat rash, and then maybe it doesn’t go away for a while and you’re like, hm, interesting. Should I go to the doctor? No, it’s probably fine. And then for a vast majority of people, it goes away. In this movie, of course, it doesn’t go away, it gets worse, and so I wanted to have that effect. If someone goes home after watching this movie and looks at their own rash, or bump, or mosquito bite and is a little more freaked out, then I’ve done my job. And that’s really what I wanted to do, it’s about getting inside the head of the audience and really viscerally disturbing them and tracking it psychologically with the sense of the main character.
DaCosta's Candyman follows a visual artist (Mateen) in Chicago as he investigates the real story behind the Candyman. Todd himself praised the upcoming reboot, noting that the movies' 30-year gap will show the changes and similarities between the world back then and today. While the sequel was one of the most highly anticipated films of the year, due to both Peele's involvement and Candyman being such a significant horror figure, fans will be kept waiting for a while. Initially scheduled for release on June 12, the film was pushed back to September due to the coronavirus pandemic. DaCosta then announced recently that the release date is being pushed back to 2021, explaining that the movie should be seen in theaters rather than sent straight to streaming.
Like Peele's previous films Get Out and Us addressed current social issues, Candyman appears to place the character in the context of today's world. A short video for the film released in June references crimes against Black people in real life, depicting Black people being executed through the use of shadow puppets. While not too much has been revealed about the reboot's titular villain, based on what DaCosta has said, audiences can expect the new Candyman to go a different direction than the original.
Source: /Film