Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is our new Candyman!

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Last week we passed along a rumor that said Lakeith Stanfield (GET OUT, DEATH NOTE) was in the running for playing the new man with the hook in producer Jordan Peele's upcoming "spiritual sequel" to Bernard Rose's original 1992 adaptation of Clive Barker's CANDYMAN. And today that seems to have been proven to be a rumor as we now have word via Variety that Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is in talks to star as the new Candyman.

Abdul-Mateen portrayed the villain in both James Wan's AQUAMAN and Netflix’s THE GET DOWN. He will appear next in Peele’s thriller US. He is also set to star in HBO’s WATCHMEN series. This update follows on the heels of Peele's upcoming reboot snagging both a director in the form of LITTLE WOODS writer-director Nia DaCosta and a June 2020 release date.

The “spiritual sequel” will return to the neighborhood where the legend began: The now-gentrified section of Chicago where the Cabrini-Green housing projects once stood. Based on Barker's story The Forbidden, the original CANDYMAN was directed by Bernard Rose. The synopsis: 

A children's ghost story comes to terrifying life in this gut-wrenching thriller about a graduate student whose research into modern folklore summons the spirit of the dead.  Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen) laughs when she interviews college freshmen about their superstitions. But when she hears about Candyman, a slave spirit with a hook hand who is said to haunt Chicago's notorious Cabrini-Green housing project, she thinks she has a new twist for this thesis. Braving the gang-ridden territory to visit the site of a brutal murder, Helen arrogantly assumes Candyman can't really exist… until he appears, igniting a string of terrifying, tragic slayings. But the police don't believe in monsters, and they charge Helen with the grisly crimes. Only one person can set her free: CANDYMAN.

Production is expected to begin this spring. Universal Pictures will handle domestic theatrical distribution and will release the movie on June 12, 2020. How excited are YOU about this casting? Let us know below!