It’s been nearly 20 years since Hollywood evoked the Candyman, but his hiatus could soon come to an end.
It is being reported by Bloody-Disgusting that Jordan Peele is in talks to produce a Candyman reboot via his Monkeypaw Productions. The rights for the franchise – originally held by the now-defunct PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and distributed by Tri-Star – have recently become available and Peele reportedly seems like the most interested in picking them up. The comedian-turned director has parlayed success from horror thriller Get Out – which earned him three Oscar nods and a Best Original Screenplay win – into a genre run (amongst several other projects,) that continues with his 2019-scheduled horror film, Us, and developing television projects in Lovecraft Country and a miniseries reboot of The Twilight Zone.
While it’s not known if Peele would also take the director’s chair for the Candyman remake, the project would serve as his first traditional slasher offering. The original 1992 movie – written and directed by Bernard Rose, based on Clive Barker’s short story, The Forbidden – starred Tony Todd as the titular hook-handed boogeyman who spits bees and haunts a housing project in Chicago.
The movie’s twist on Barker’s white-and-blonde boogeyman added a socio-political layer to the film, reinventing the killer as an African American who was lynched back in 1890, suffering a severed hand before being smothered with honey and stung to death by bees.
Candyman was not a runaway box office success and yielded about $25.8 its domestic-only release. However, it became successful enough to yield a theatrically-released sequel in 1995’s Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh, which only grossed $13.9 million, leading to its final entry, the 1999 straight-to-video sequel, Candyman: Day of the Dead.
If you really want to see the Candyman make a comeback, say his name five times in front of a mirror and hope for the best.