Nia DaCosta is following up modern-day Western “Little Woods” with a horror pic. The writer-director has signed on to helm a “spiritual sequel” to “Candyman,” Deadline confirms.
Returning to the Chicago neighborhood depicted in the 1992 original, the project takes viewers back to the beginning of the legend.
“Candyman” told the story of an urban myth come to life: a man who is summoned to kill whenever someone facing a mirror repeats his name five times.
Scheduled to film this spring, the sequel is being produced by MGM, Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw, and Win Rosenfeld. Universal will release the pic in the U.S. on June 12, 2020. Peele and Rosenfeld penned the script.
“The original was a landmark film for black representation in the horror genre. Alongside ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ ‘Candyman’ was a major inspiration for me as filmmaker — and to have a bold new talent like Nia at the helm of this project is truly exciting,” said Peele, the Oscar-winning writer-director of “Get Out.” “We are honored to bring the next chapter in the ‘Candyman’ canon to life and eager to provide new audiences with an entry point to Clive Barker’s legend.” Barker is the author of “The Forbidden,” the short story on which “Candyman” is based.
DaCosta made her feature debut with this year’s “Little Woods.” Set in North Dakota, the pic stars Tessa Thompson and Lily James and sees them playing sisters who resort to working outside the law to settle the mortgage on their mother’s house. The film made its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival in April. DaCosta took home the fest’s Nora Ephron Award, given in honor of a woman writer and/or director. The prize includes $25,000.
Neon snagged rights to the film in June, but no word on a release date yet. It currently holds a 100 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
“Part of what drew me to the story was my desire to explore a rural part of America that I was unfamiliar with and understand the lives of women in these spaces,” DaCosta told us. “When I found the oil boomtown, Williston, North Dakota, I knew that my story would need to take place in this part of the U.S. It was this quintessentially American space, an oil rush town, the wild west, where people go to live out the American Dream and where the promise is not met,” she explained.
When we asked the best and worst advice she’s received, DaCosta said, “Write what you know and write what you know. I used to take it too literally. Now I’ve freed myself to write what I know emotionally but allow it to cross into the unfamiliar.”
