With Nia DaCosta’s Candyman currently scheduled for an August 27th, 2021 release date, star Colman Domingo has explained why the upcoming reboot needs to be seen on the big screen with an audience.
“It does need to be on a big screen, I believe that,” Domingo shared with Entertainment Tonight. “Nia DaCosta directed something that is really epic and it’s really visually stunning. And I think you need to be in an audience and be shocked and at the same time. And laugh at the same time, and go ‘oh’ at the same time.”
Domingo’s comments closely resemble a statement that director Nia DaCosta provided following one of the film’s several delays as the filmmaker claimed the studio is committed to releasing Candyman in theatres.
“We made Candyman to be seen in theatres. 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 theatres, and share in that experience.”
SEE ALSO: Tony Todd says fans will be “proud” of Nia DaCosta’s Candyman
Candyman is directed by Nia DaCosta and produced by Get Out and Us director Jordan Peele. The film features a cast that includes Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (HBO’s Watchmen), Teyonah Parris (If Beale Street Could Talk), Colman Domingo (Fear the Walking Dead), Rebecca Spence (Public Enemies), Cassie Kramer (Bimbo) and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (Misfits).
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.
