Universal Pictures has announced that “The Purge,” starring Ethan Hawke, will be released on Friday, May 31, 2013.

Directed by James DeMonaco (writer of “Assault on Precinct 13” and “The Negotiator”), “The  Purge” is produced by Jason Blum (“Paranormal Activity,” “Insidious"), Platinum Dunes’ partners Michael Bay (pictured), Brad Fuller and Andrew Form (“The Amityville Horror,” “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”), as well as Sébastien Kurt Lemercier (“Assault on Precinct 13.”)

The film is a speculative thriller that follows one family over the course of a single night when they will be tested to see how far they will go to protect themselves and their home.

In an America wracked by crime and overcrowded prisons, the government has sanctioned an annual 12-hour period in which any and all criminal activity, including murder, becomes legal. 

When an intruder breaks into James Sandin’s (Hawke) gated community during the yearly lockdown, he begins a sequence of events that threatens to tear a family apart.  Now, it is up to James, his wife, Mary (Lena Headey), and their kids to make it through the night without turning into the monsters from whom they hide.