It was foolish of us to expect The Purge to ride off quietly into the night, when it’s proven to be one of the most successful brands to come out of the Blumhouse hit factory. Even prior to the release of last week’s The Forever Purge, the series had managed to earn close to $450 million at the box office on combined production costs of $53 million, and the fifth entry has already recouped its modest $18 million from theaters.
Despite repeatedly insisting that Forever would mark the end of the line, DeMonaco has been out there hitting the press circuit and intimating his desires to tell as many new stories as possible. Not only does he want to churn out a multitude of additional Purge movies, but he’s already in the process of firming up plans to have Frank Grillo return as Leo Barnes in the sixth installment.
Not to be overlooked in the grand tapestry of The Purge mythology is the TV series, which aired for 20 episodes across two seasons on the USA Network before being canceled. Ratings were never particularly strong, and critics were far from enthusiastic, but it still appealed directly to the fanbase that had made the feature films so popular in the first place, so the show definitely knew what its audience wanted to see.
In a new interview, DeMonaco admitted that he would have loved to see the episodic Purge continue, and even detailed some of his plans for what the third batch of episodes would have brought to our screens.
“No, between you and I, I wish the TV show went on. I had an idea for Season 3, that I was very excited by. I oversaw the show. I wasn’t showrunning, but we had great showrunners both years, and I was working very closely with them. So, we had more places that we wanted to explore. We were thinking of even going overseas for one of the Purge seasons, with the conceit being that parts of American culture and American society obviously go, so what happens if the Purge starts to spread around the world, the way music does or movies.
We wanted to really continue it. USA, unfortunately, for various reasons politically, and I don’t know if they’re even making any original fare anymore. I heard they’re not. Maybe there’ll be a permutation in the future to continue it. What I liked about the TV show was the real estate of having 10 hours to explore the Purge conceit. It was a way to do things like how Season 2 was between Purges. We could never do that in a movie, ever. It was fun to go into the stuff that we could never go into with the films.”
Of course, one potential avenue is to revive The Purge as a streaming exclusive, given that Universal control the theatrical distribution rights, Blumhouse Television is expanding its lineup of content, and Peacock is hardly packed to bursting point with high profile original content.