Candyman reboot clip tells a tragic origin story

Earlier this month, we heard that Michael Hargrove is playing a character named Sherman Fields in director Nia DaCosta’s upcoming Candyman reboot / “spiritual sequel” (watch the original film HERE). Fields is an alternative version of the title character, and there’s been a heavy focus on his tragic story in the marketing for the film. In the clip embedded above, Fear the Walking Dead‘s Colman Domingo appears as a character who tells the Sherman Fields story to the lead, played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. And the story begins with Domingo referencing Helen Lyle, the heroine played by Virginia Madsen in the original Candyman.

DaCosta’s Candyman is set to reach theatres on August 27th. Scripted by DaCosta and producers Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld, the film has the following synopsis:

For as long as residents can remember, the housing projects of Chicago’s Cabrini Green neighborhood were terrorized by a word-of-mouth ghost story about a supernatural killer with a hook for a hand, easily summoned by those daring to repeat his name five times into a mirror. In present day, a decade after the last of the Cabrini towers were torn down, visual artist Anthony McCoy and his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright, move into a luxury loft condo in Cabrini, now gentrified beyond recognition and inhabited by upwardly mobile millennials.

With Anthony’s painting career on the brink of stalling, a chance encounter with a Cabrini Green old-timer exposes Anthony to the tragically horrific nature of the true story behind Candyman. Anxious to maintain his status in the Chicago art world, Anthony begins to explore these macabre details in his studio as fresh grist for paintings, unknowingly opening a door to a complex past that unravels his own sanity and unleashes a terrifyingly viral wave of violence that puts him on a collision course with destiny.

The actors mentioned above are joined in the cast by Teyonah Parris, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, and original Candyman cast member Vanessa Williams, reprising the role of Anne-Marie McCoy. The Anthony McCoy mentioned in the synopsis is believed to be Anne-Marie’s son, the baby from the first film. Tony Todd is also in there somewhere.

Ian Cooper produced Candyman with Peele and Rosenfeld.