James DeMonaco – Movie Smack Talk

The Creator Of ‘The Purge’ Franchise Reveals What ‘Purge 4’ Will Be About, Also Talks About TV Series Spin-Off

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By Z-rowe September 7, 2017 September 7, 2017 Industry News

James DeMonaco probably didn’t know what he was creating back in 2013 when he released the first Purge movie. The film, which starred Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey, was made on a $3 million budget and it took home almost $90 million at the box office.

What does that mean? It means it was the start of a franchise. The Purge: Anarchy was released just one year later in 2014, and it made over $110 million at the box office. The third film in the franchise, The Purge: Election Year, earned nearly $120 million at the box office last year.

So as you can see, the franchise has been a huge success for DeMonaco, and it shows no signs of stopping. The Purge 4, titled Purge: The Island, is scheduled to be released July 4, 2018.

And while DeMonaco wrote the script for it, he will not be directing it. But still, he’s obviously heavily involved in the project, and he revealed that this fourth film will be set on Staten Island during the first ever Purge night…

“It’s 90 percent black people. So yeah, you get a little daunted. Like, ‘What am I — Italian guy from Staten Island — what am I bringing to this?’ But hopefully I’m telling the universal story. I was wondering how you get people to stay for the first Purge, and what they do is they start monetizing it. People from Staten Island can easily go to Brooklyn for the evening, so what they do is start promising very decent sums of money for the very poor people in the neighborhood. It becomes a monetization of murder and violence, incentivizing killing and keeping people around for them to be victims.”

DeMonaco also talked about the TV show, which will be set “in the middle” of the Purge timelines. The filmmaker admits he’s very excited for the TV series because it allows them to focus more on the characters.

“We’re going back six months or two years or into their childhood to see some things that might’ve fed into their decision-making on this particular Purge. The long form is actually allowing it to become more of a character study, which is kind of cool, instead of a singular event of surviving the night.”

The TV show is set to be released next year on USA and SYFY.

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Lock Your Doors, ‘The Purge 3’ Is In Development With James DeMonaco

By Z-rowe October 7, 2014 October 7, 2014 Industry News

Why does Hollywood love making sequels/prequels? Because the majority of people love watching them. This means there is a decent chance the movie will make a ridiculous amount of money. If no one cared about sequels, Hollywood would stop shoving them down our throats, because they would no longer be profitable.

But sadly, that’s never going to happen, which is why writer/director James DeMonaco is teaming up with Universal Pictures for a third installment to The Purge franchise. Due to the success of the first two films, development has now started on the third film. It makes sense, considering the first two films had a combined budget of $12 million, and together have brought in over $200 million worldwide.

As we mentioned, DeMonaco will be back. He was the writer and director behind the first two films. It will be interesting to see where he takes the franchise now. The first film followed a single family inside their house, and then we saw The Purge world open up in the second film, which followed multiple groups of people and gave us a better idea of what the Purge is all about.

There are rumors floating around that DeMonaco wants the third film to be a prequel. Jason Blum, the producer behind the movies, reportedly said the film might focus on the Revolutionaries and the very first purge.

We’ll keep you updated as more information becomes available. Be safe out there, folks.

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Movie Review: The Purge: Anarchy – A Depressing Social commentary on our Society

By admin July 27, 2014 July 27, 2014 3.5 Star Reviews, Movie Reviews, Top Slider

Last week was an eclectic week at the theater. You had Jason Segal and Cameron Diaz being silly in Sex Tape, you had talking planes and trucks in Planes: Fire and Rescue, and then you had the Purge: Anarchy, the sequel to last summers sleeper hit.

The Purge: Anarchy is set one year after the last purge, hence the whole annual thing. As it starts, we find five people, who were stupid enough to get trapped outside when they knew a year in advance the Purge was coming. These people include a woman (Kiele Sanchez) and her timid husband ( Zach Gilford); a no nonsense waitress (Carmen Ejogo) and her daughter (Zoe Soul); and a grumpy man in black (Frank Grillo). The group spends the night sneaking around the city, avoiding a machete wielding motorcycle gang and citizens who are more heavily armed than Rambo following a gun sale at WalMart.

The Purge is a unique movie, in that it’s one part gory horror and one part social commentary. The writers of this movie apparently have no faith in humanity, as they have filled the world with people who are just delighted at the opportunity to murder their fellow human beings for the 12 hours that its’ legal. It’s really a sad comment on the way we view the world, as the predators far outnumber the prey. The message is this; everyone would commit murder, arson, vandalism and theft if only they could get away with it.

While I choose to be more optimistic than that, it does make for a fun watch…for the first 80 minutes. For the fist 80 minutes, while the movie is over the top, it’s not cartoony over the top. Then, the last 20 minutes rolls in and it gets over the top in a bad way.

There wasn’t much acting to be done here. The bad guys looked menacing and the good guys looked scared. I did like the addition of the angry policeman who is out to avenge his son’s death. It made for a nice side plot and kept me interested when I really would have gotten bored if they just spent the whole movie running around, trying not to get killed.

The Purge: Anarchy is a proficient movie. It gives people going to see an action/slasher flick exactly what they’d want. Lots of gore, lots of violence and lots of gun fire. It’s a clever premise which was expanded from the original, with a bit more depth given to the characters this time around. There are no big stars in this movie, but they really didn’t need them. It’s a good enough plot to stand on its own merits.

Granted, it’s patchy and there are plot holes. The last 20 minutes made it a little silly and cartoony and didn’t seem to match the rest of the movie, but it was still entertaining. It was also a pretty depressing social commentary on our society as a whole and it will make you wonder how you would behave during a Purge, if purges were real.

Me, I’d build a bomb shelter and I wouldn’t go out for a month prior and a month after, just to avoid getting stuck outside.

WE GAVE IT: 3.5 Stars: Official Movie Trailer and Movie Poster Below