Jordan Peele opens up on choosing Nia DaCosta to helm the new Candyman film.
With Nia DaCosta’s Candyman arriving later this year, writer and producer Jordan Peele recently explained why he chose her to direct the spiritual sequel rather than taking it on himself. Peele is well known for flourishing in the horror genre after Get Out and Us both proved to be hugely successful. But when speaking to Empire magazine he mentioned that he’s “too obsessed” with his own stories, before praising DaCosta’s work on Candyman.
“I was working on Us when this would have happened. But quite honestly, Nia is better to shoot this than I am. I’m way too obsessed with the original tales in my head. I probably wouldn’t be any good. But Nia has a steady manner about her which you don’t see a lot in the horror space. She’s refined, elegant, every shot is beautiful. It’s a beautiful, beautiful movie. I’m so glad I didn’t mess it up.”
In the same piece, DaCosta noted that the film specifically updates the themes surrounding the Cabrini-Green housing projects, since the area has become heavily gentrified since the previous films. The director explained that it was incredibly important to have a Black main character and to have this story be told through a Black lens.
“There is definitely a sense of taking ownership, and telling a Black story about Black people. It was very important for all of us to have our main character be Black, and for this experience to be through the Black lens. Let’s make sure we change the lens now.”
Take a look at the new image from Candyman below.
Are you excited to see Nia DaCosta direct Candyman? What do you want to see from the new film? Sound off in the comments below!
Here is the official synopsis for Jordan Peele’s Candyman:
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.
Directed by Nia DaCosta from a script she co-wrote with Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld, Candyman stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Colman Domingo, and Tony Todd.
Candyman will be released in theaters on June 12, 2020.
Source: Empire
