With each of the 3 films in ‘The Purge‘ franchise grossing more than the last and a subject that seems made for a series it shouldn’t surprise any of us that a television show could be in the works. The concept makes all crime legal for 12 hours each year and that could lead into a perfect 12 episode series shot “live” akin to how ’24’ used to follow Jack Bauer and CTU around for a season. Dipping into completely different sub-genres of horror and locations each season, the idea of watching multiple years of ‘The Purge’ through different viewpoints and even being used as social commentary is an interesting idea.
At the very least that is what series creator James DeMonaco seems to believe. Though, not quite disconnected:
“Yes! Not an anthology… I guess kind of an anthology — more of an interwoven anthology. They came to me about a TV show, my idea is that you do six or seven storylines. And I would kind of intercut them, use flashbacks.”
In fact, he liked the idea so much that he felt it would make for a better television show than a film:
“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. Whether it’s revenge or out of passion, but what might be interesting in a TV show is with a flashback narrative, if you start on Purge Night but you go back to show how people have gotten to where they are. Where you see a couple that’s gone haywire on this night, but let’s show everything that’s led up to this moment of a husband trying to kill a wife — the cheating or the accusations of cheating or money problems. It will be interesting to show those arcs, those dramatic and complex arcs that get people to where they pick up a gun or a knife and kill someone else. I think there’s something cool that we can do with the real estate of TV — 10 hours, potentially.”
That kind of character motivation has been sorely lacking in the films so far and while they have cleared captured audience attention. It’s absolutely an interesting idea but how long until such an idea would make its way to the small screen?
“…hey’re far ahead on the TV front… pretty far ahead. Not to get into the nuance of how it all goes down, we’re talking about deals right now, money is being spoken about. Things like that. So I think it’s being taken very seriously from the higher-ups who obviously dictate everything.”
This doesn’t sound like there is a push for this anthology series to launch right away but one that could be seriously in pre-development stages.
Would you be interested in an ongoing look at the world of ‘The Purge’ from the viewpoint of those who actively take part in it? Share your thoughts below!
Source: Collider
Stuart Conover is an author, blogger, and all around geek. When not busy being a father and husband he tries to spend as much time as possible immersed in comic books, science fiction, and horror! Would you like to know more? Follow him on Twitter!
