New Candyman Image Teases a Tortured Artist

Director Nia DaCosta‘s take on Candyman is set to debut in theaters later this year, with an all-new photo from the upcoming revival offering an intimate glance at Anthony McCoy, played by Watchmen‘s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. While this new look at the film might not be the most frightening image we’ve seen, it does pique our curiosity about how Anthony’s fate will lead him towards a frightening collision with the legendary Candyman, played in previous films by Tony Todd. Check out the new look at the upcoming Candyman below and see the film when it lands in theaters on August 27th.

The new film was originally slated to hit theaters last June, only for the coronavirus pandemic to see the film first delayed to September, then to October, and then to 2021. While some studios modified their release schedule to allow select films to debut on Premium VOD platforms, don’t expect that to be the case with Candyman.

“We made Candyman to be seen in theaters,” DaCosta shared on Twitter when its delay was annoucend last year. “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. 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.”

In the new film, 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.

Candyman is slated to hit theaters on August 27th.

Are you looking forward to the new film? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!