“Candyman,” the horror film from director Nia DaCosta and co-writer Jordan Peele, made $1.9 million at the box office in its Thursday night previews from 2,750 theaters with showings beginning at 7 p.m. It opens on 3,569 North American theaters.
“Candyman,” an MGM film released by Universal, is a contemporary reimagining and spiritual sequel to the 1992 cult classic of the same name.
Universal is projecting the film to open in the mid-teens this weekend. For comparison, Universal’s “Old” from director M. Night Shyamalan made $1.5 million in its Thursday previews earlier this summer and went on to a $16.8 million opening.
“Candyman” seeks to close out the summer in style, having been delayed several times due to the pandemic. The film has seen a strong reaction from critics, handing it an 86% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 71 on Metacritic.
“Little Woods” director DaCosta directs the film that Peele co-wrote with her and Win Rosenfeld. The film is now set in the gentrified neighborhood of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green, where people in the projects were terrorized by a ghost story about a supernatural killer with a hook for a hand, a monster who can be summoned by speaking his name five times in a mirror.
The film follows a young artist (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who seeks to capture the history of Candyman and what the legend says about the racial divide throughout decades in Chicago. He speaks with a local (Colman Domingo), who helps him explore the more macabre details of the monster, only for his artwork and paintings to inadvertently summon him and lead to a string of murders. The film also stars Teyonah Parris and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett.
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