Variety is reporting that Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Aquaman, The Get Down, Us) will star in Jordan Peele’s upcoming sequel as the new Candyman.
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Abdul-Mateen recently starred in Aquaman as Manta and will next be seen on the big screen in Peele’s Us. He is also starring in HBO’s Watchmen series adaptation, the drama feature All Day and a Night alongside Jeffrey Wright, and is currently filming Sweetness in the Belly, based on the novel by Camilla Gibb.
Rising filmmaker Nia DaCosta (Little Woods) will direct Candyman from a screenplay by Peele and Rosenfeld. The film, a “spiritual sequel” to the original, returns to the neighborhood where the legend began: the now-gentrified section of Chicago where the Cabrini-Green housing projects once stood.
MGM will produce and finance Candyman with Universal handling domestic theatrical distribution. Adam Rosenberg, MGM’s Co-President of Production and Tabitha Shick, MGM’s Vice President of Production will oversee the project on behalf of the studio and Ian Cooper will produce for Monkeypaw.
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Production is expected to begin this spring. Universal Pictures will release Candyman theatrically in the U.S. on June 12, 2020.
(Photo Credit: Getty Images)
