I have a real soft spot for James DeMonaco’s The Purge film franchise, and by soft spot I mean a baseball sized dent in Trevor’s head. The first movie was an interesting take on class and privilege. The second wasn’t as focused when it came to the political nature of the films but had some brilliant action. And then we got the third – an almost Escape from New York frenzied roller-coaster that built nicely on the first two.
But that’s not the end of this tale. Get ready, people, because in an interview with Cinemablend the crazy writer and director DeMonaco revealed that a television series, yes, TV, is well into development. It will focus more on how people are motivated to go mental each year. He says that he would really like a ten part stretch that focuses on five to six different stories.
The idea of why I like the idea of a maybe 10 hour TV thing on this, the one thing you really can’t do on the films is, just because of mere real estate and time, is you can’t get into the nuance and complexity that would drive someone to commit a terrible act on this night.
He’s of course right there. At first I balked at the idea of The Purge series, wondering how you can string out the tension to ten hours. However, if you think about The Walking Dead, a longer investigation into what turns people nuts would work rather well. But wait, there’s more…
DeMonaco also confirmed he was working on a prequel to the movies. Yes, he is following in the steps of everyone else and I really don’t care. I would love to see what happened in America that leads to this day and in the current climate there would probably be rather topical and relevant.
So, what do you think? Would you watch a TV series based on the violent movies? And what do you think about the prequel idea.
Last Updated: October 5, 2016
