Franchise creator James DeMonaco has another Purge movie written and ready to go. So what’s the hold-up? It turns out Universal Pictures has some concerns about the budget. As a result, the sequel is on hold for the time being. The question is whether or not the studio and filmmaker can come to terms to make this thing happen. One imagines they will.
DeMonaco recently spoke with The Playlist in honor of the tenth anniversary of The Purge, which originally hit theaters in 2013. He addressed the status of The Purge 6, but it didn’t sound particularly optimistic. The director has turned in a script, but Universal doesn’t want to pony up the dough it would take to make the thing. Here’s what he had to say about it:
“I wrote the script. Universal has seen it. There are concerns about budget, but it definitely presents a fractured America…The America I present in Purge 6 is where we all are separated by ideology and sexual preference. So, the states are broken down in different ways. It’s written, it’s in [Universal’s] hands. I think they’re scared about the budget. But my thing was if I was going to come back and direct a sixth one, it was going to be something bigger and a little more epic in scope, with this new America I want to present and bringing back [Frank Grillo’s] character. So, it’s kinda in limbo.”
As we’ve heard in the past, Frank Grillo is on board to reprise his role in the sixth entry. Grillo played Leo Barnes in both The Purge: Anarchy and The Purge: Election Year, but we haven’t seen him in some time. The First Purge was a prequel, and 2021’s The Forever Purge took things in an entirely new direction with new characters. Seeing how DeMonaco would loop Leo back into the fold would be interesting, particularly given the filmmaker’s comments on the scope of what he’s put on the page.
For Universal, even if the sixth entry would be a bit more costly, it feels like it would be hard for them to walk away from it entirely. To date, the five movies in the series have grossed $535 million at the global box office against combined budgets of just $53 million. That’s one heck of a rate of return. They also made a two-season TV show. Even The Forever Purge took in $77 million against an $18 million budget when the pandemic was raging. That being the case, it seems there’s still money to be made here.
For now, several of The Purge films, in addition to the series, are streaming on Peacock.
