Candyman… Candyman… Candyman… Candyman…. no, I can’t do it! One of the great villains in all of horror is getting a reboot. Yahya Abdul Mateen stars as a man returning to Cabrini Green, and the famed killing grounds of the Candyman. Check out the trailer here!
One of the best urban legend tales is coming back to the big screen, and it comes with a good bit of fanfare. Candyman is back and will be arriving in theaters in a prime June 12 landing spot, showing real confidence in the film from MGM, who could really use a big hit. The reason for confidence? That’s easy. It’s Jordan Peele.
This will be a test for the Jordan Peele brand. His success with Get Out and Us has given Mr. Peele the opportunity to do whatever he wants in the genre. But this time, he’s writing and producing but not directing, and this feature will be a property that isn’t wholly his own creation. This will be a very big step up to the big leagues for director Nia DaCosta, an African American woman who has a nifty contemporary western, Little Woods starring Tessa Thompson, as her debut feature under her belt.
The Candyman reboot certainly comes with a lot of expectations, particularly with Peele’s name behind it. It will be a particularly interesting take for this film, considering that the original film was written by a white British man (Clive Barker), and directed by a white man (Bernard Rose), and yet it talked about the American black urban experience and explored subject material involving poverty, slavery, and injustice… and by most accounts did it pretty well. Now we have that tale from an African American perspective, and it will be very interesting to compare and contrast.
The legendary original Candyman, Tony Todd will be back in a supporting role, and it will be Yaha Abdul Mateen, most famously known as The Black Manta in Aquaman, taking the lead as both a protagonist who will transform into the tortured soul that is Candyman. This flies in contrast to the original story which had the Candyman as strictly a supernatural boogieman, who at the same time over the franchise’s history became a more sympathetic figure. So it has been already been put forward that this will not be a one-for-one reboot.
A “spiritual sequel” to the 1992 horror film ‘Candyman’ that returns to the now-gentrified Chicago neighborhood where the legend began.
Official MGM Description
When it comes to replacing Tony Todd, I think this may work. Candyman is a more identifiable character than Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees for the simple matter that you can see his face, and can form some sort of an emotional connection with him. But at the same time, he is not an overwhelming inimitable personality like Robert Englund’s wisecracking Freddy Krueger, whose Nightmare on Elm Street franchise attempted a disastrous reboot that was felled largely due to the fact that the franchise was personality-driven. I think Candyman falls in-between.
Teyonnah Parris [Empire, Mad Men] and Coleman Domingo [Fear the Walking Dead, Selma] headline the supporting cast. I particularly like Parris shushing reaction in the trailer. This Candyman is no joke! Don’t you go pushing your luck! No
This has the potential to be one of the most interesting reboots in a very long while, and given the people working on this film, it has the opportunity to be a proper modern retelling like the successful Halloween franchise just had. It always helps when the faces of the franchise are on board to hand the baton off. But you never know… the Child’s Play and Pet Semetary trailers looked promising too, but the product was rather meh.
Reboots. They can be tricky. But this trailer is a winner. I’m going for sure!