The Purge franchise creator James DeMonaco and comedian Pete Davidson are both proud of their Staten Island roots, and they’ve made that clear in their film work. DeMonaco’s directorial debut was a movie called Staten Island (a.k.a. Little New York), he set The First Purge there, and his new movie This Is the Night was nearly called Once Upon a Time in Staten Island. Last year, Davidson wrote, executive produced, and starred in the film The King of Staten Island. So it makes sense that DeMonaco and Davidson would work together at some point – and DeMonaco thinks a horror movie with Davidson attached to star will be his next project to move forward.
DeMonaco told Collider,
The next one, or that I hope it’s the next one to go and it’s looking like it could be, that I’m doing a rewrite right now on, is horror. It’s actually more horror, I would say, than The Purge. For true horror fans, I’d say it’s more horror genre. I would say it’s psychological horror. It’s paranoid thriller horror. It looks like Pete Davidson is gonna star. Pete’s attached, and he’s a friend of mine who lives up the street here in Staten Island. We’re hoping to shoot in the New Year. We’ve just finished drafts, we’re showing some people, and there’s interest. It’s a great role for Pete. It’s a very serious role, and that looks like it will be next. I have a couple of other things brewing, but that seems like the closest one to happening.”
The filmmaker didn’t give any information on the plot, but did mention that the role would require Davidson to be “alone quite a lot”.
One of the other things James DeMonaco has brewing is a sixth Purge film, which he would direct with Frank Grillo returning to star as his character Leo Barnes from The Purge: Anarchy and The Purge: Election Year. Universal has not yet given that project a greenlight.