Candyman Release Date Delayed Until Fall
The horror reboot moves from a June arrival date to a September landing.
Universal Pictures has pushed back the release of its Candyman remake/reboot from June 12 to September 25 of this year, according to Variety.
Candyman was actually one of the last holdouts on Universal’s upcoming slate. Tentpoles such as F9: The Fast and Furious Saga, Minions: The Rise of Gru and Sing 2 have been moved to later this year, next year or TBA, while this month’s Trolls World Tour is still meeting its April 10 release date, only on demand.
Other major spring and summer releases that have been shifted into the future include Black Widow, Mulan, Wonder Woman 1984, Top Gun: Maverick, No Time to Die, Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Morbius.
With theaters remaining closed for at least several more months due to the COVID-19 pandemic — and with the most optimistic forecasts suggesting that they could start re-opening in July — the studios are essentially writing off the lucrative summer movie schedule. With Candyman gone, only a handful of summer releases, including Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, are still clinging to original release dates.
Produced and written by Jordan Peele and directed by Nia DaCosta, Candyman is described as a “spiritual sequel” to the original 1992 film, in which the murdered ghost of an African-American artist with a hook for a hand can be summoned to a Chicago housing project if his name is said five times.
In the new film, a struggling artist played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Black Manta in Aquaman) moves into the newly gentrified Cabrini Green neighborhood and uses the legend of the Candyman as inspiration for his work, only to begin losing his mind and his grip on reality.
In a funny/not funny side note, DaCosta threw a little shade toward Variety, which headlined its story on the movie’s delay with “Jordan Peele’s Candyman,” a term usually reserved for the director:
Candyman will now come out during a month crowded with horror releases, including A Quiet Place: Part II on September 4, The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It on September 11 and Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho on September 25.
Written by
Don Kaye is an entertainment journalist by trade and geek by natural design. Born in New York City, currently ensconced in Los Angeles, his earliest childhood memory is…