Series Creator James DeMonaco Eyes TV Spinoff Of The Purge

Could the New Founding Fathers of America be headed to television screens? In short: yes. When asked about the future of the dystopian film series, writer-director James DeMonaco entertained the notion of bringing The Purge to television screens.

Chatting to Cinema Blend on the eve of Election Year‘s home video release – look for threequel to march onto Blu-ray and DVD this week – DeMonaco spoke about the potential of fleshing out multiple story strands via a 10-hour series, as opposed to being limited to the typical framework of a feature film.

Said he: “Dude, it’s so weird you bring that up. 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.”

Across three movies in the space of four years, The Purge franchise has raked in a respectable box office haul, with each installment being a shining example of Universal and Blumhouse’s knack for transforming low budget genre flicks into bankable hits. As such, even if these talks don’t bear fruit, it’s almost a forgone conclusion that viewers will be experiencing Purge night once more – be it on screens big or small – but judging by James DeMonaco’s comments, television is perhaps the most viable option.

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.

Do you believe The Purge would excel if DeMonaco and Co. repackaged the franchise for television? Let us know by commenting below!