The Hollywood Reporter has brought word that If Beale Street Could Talk star Teyonah Parris has entered negotiations with MGM to star in the upcoming spiritual sequel to the 1992 cult horror classic Candyman from producer Jordan Peele (Get Out).
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The film recently added Aquaman star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in the lead role as an artist who becomes obsessed with the legend of the serial killer. Should she sign, Parris will play his girlfriend, an art dealer.
The 31-year-old actress found her breakout role in the acclaimed 2014 indie comedy Dear White People after having a supporting role in the hit AMC drama Mad Men, and followed it up with the lead role in the highly-discussed Spike Lee musical crime drama Chi-Raq in 2015, the Starz sitcom Survivor’s Remorse and the Oscar-nominated romantic drama If Beale Street Could Talk.
Rising filmmaker Nia DaCosta (Little Woods) will direct Candyman from a screenplay by Peele and Win 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)
