'Candyman' Reboot Wants Lakeith Stanfield To The Say The Film's Title Five Times In A Mirror

Producer Jordan Peele may be eyeing a familiar face for the upcoming Candyman reboot. The "spiritual sequel" to the 1992 horror classic is reportedly looking at Sorry to Bother You star Lakeith Stanfield to lead the new cast. Stanfield, who previously worked with Peele on his breakout directorial debut Get Out, is in talks to play the protagonist of the film, which will be helmed by Little Woods director Nia DaCosta.

Collider confirmed that Lakeith Stanfield is in talks to play the protagonist in the Candyman reboot. SuperBroMovies first broke the news that Stanfield is the frontrunner to play Anthony, a young man in Chicago who is researching the urban legend known as Candyman. However, "It's not long before people around Anthony start dying, though it's unclear if any of them first had to chant Candyman's name five times in front of a mirror" (because that's how you summon Candyman).

Stanfield would be playing a similar role to the one played by Virginia Madsen in the 1992 original. In the original Candyman, Madsen plays a grad student writing a thesis on urban legends who discovers that a local boogeyman known as the Candyman is very real and very dangerous. The 1992 film was based on an original short story by Clive Barker and was the first major horror film to feature an iconic villain played by a black actor, which Peele has said made it "a landmark film for black representation in the horror genre." However, the original film received some criticism over its handling of race, and gender and race-flipping the protagonist seems like a good way for Peele and DaCosta to address that.

Stanfield has had quite a year, starring in the critically acclaimed indie hit Sorry to Bother You and making a blockbuster appearance in the less well-received The Girl in the Spider's Web. The breakout star of FX's Atlanta, Stanfield is still at the beginning of his Hollywood rise to fame, and a starring role in a reboot of a cult classic could be the perfect next step.

The Candyman reboot is being billed as a "spiritual sequel," with a story that "returns to the neighborhood where the legend began: the now-gentrified section of Chicago where the Cabrini-Green housing projects once stood." Peele will co-write the script with Win Rosenfeld.

Candyman is set to open in theaters on June 12, 2020.