Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman! It seems that Jordan Peele is continuing his journey from comedy to horror by resurrecting one of the scariest baddies in the genre, Candyman, originally played by Tony Todd. The first movie was directed by Bernard Rose, based on the Clive Barker short story ‘The Forbidden’. In addition to Todd, the first movie starred Virginia Madsen as the female protagonist, Helen Lyle. The first movie spawned two direct-to-video sequels. Tri-Star released the first two films in the series, while the third ‘Day of the Dead’ came from Artisan. It’s unclear who holds the rights now but Peele is seeking to gain them, via his Monkeypaw production studio, in order to resurrect this franchise.
Two years ago, Rose stated that he would like to make a sequel and bring Madsen back in the role of Helen. Peele may or may not direct this project, so it is possible that this will be a collaboration between him and Rose.
‘Candyman’ revolved around an urban legend, similar to Bloody Mary or ‘American Horror Story”s Piggy Man. If some dummy looks into a mirror and says his name five times, he will manifest in real life and start killing people, starting with said dummy.
Peele gained fame on his sketch comedy series ‘Key & Peele’ but made a huge splash with last year’s low-key horror hit ‘Get Out’, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. (He was also nominated for Best Director.) He is continuing down that dark path, producing ‘Twilight Zone’ for CBS All Access, ‘The Hunt’ for Amazon Prime, ‘Lovecraft Country’ for HBO, ‘Weird City’ for Youtube, and animated series ‘Wendell and Wild’ for Netflix. (He also provides the voice for the ghost of Duke Ellington on Netflix’s animated series ‘Big Mouth’.) He is a producer of the current box office hit ‘BlacKkKlansman’.
Are you a fan of the original ‘Candyman’ films? Are you excited to see that it might be returning?
Source: Bloody Disgusting
