New Candyman Delayed to 2021

The new Candyman from director Nia DaCosta is once again being delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, with Variety confirming the film has been pushed from its planned October 16th release date to sometime in 2021. The film was originally slated to hit theaters this past June, but was first pushed back to September before earning its October release. Despite the excitement for the project, it’s clear that the effects of the pandemic won’t be subsiding anytime soon and that virtually every studio would rather optimize their releases than be forced to put audiences in danger or open their films when theaters aren’t operating at their full capacity.

Theaters began closing their doors this past March, which posed a number of complications for spring releases. As time went by, some projects were pushed incrementally as others were delayed by an entire year, though studios were optimistic that theaters could be up and running by the summer. Only one major film has landed in theaters, as Christopher Nolan’s Tenet debuted last weekend, despite only select theaters being open around the country and the ones that were open were functioning in a limited capacity.

Only a week after Tenet opened to disappointing numbers, Warner Bros. made the decision to delay the upcoming Wonder Woman 1984 from October to December, once again hoping that two months would be enough time for more theaters to be open. It would seem as though, after witnessing the performance of Tenet and noticing other studio shifts, that Universal Pictures opted to delay the film by months instead of risk constant delays.

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.

The new film was directed by Nia DaCosta from a script by Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld.

Stay tuned for details on the release of the new Candyman.

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