In the wake of Friday’s delay of the “Candyman” revival, the film’s director Nia DaCosta took to Twitter earlier today to offer some insight into the decision to delay the release yet again and stick with a theatrical run rather than dropping it via a digital distribution channel.
DaCosta co-wrote the script with Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld, whose Monkeypaw Productions is producing. “Candyman” was originally going to be released this June before being moved to mid-October and now to an unspecified January release date.
DaCosta says the movie will not bypass the big screen for premium VOD at any point because the communal viewing experience of this movie is a key part of it:
“We made Candyman to be seen in theaters. 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.”
Set a decade after the last of Cabrini Green’s towers were torn down, the film sees 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 an 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.
Source: Twitter