The Cast and Director on the Legacy of Candyman

Director Nia DaCosta and stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, and Colman Domingo reflect on how their 2021 version of Candyman upholds and expands the meaning and legacy of the horror franchise. For as long as residents can remember, the housing projects of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green neighborhood were terrorized by a word-of-mouth ghost story about a supernatural killer with a hook for a hand, easily summoned by those daring to repeat his name five times into a mirror. In present day, a decade after the last of the Cabrini towers were torn down, visual artist Anthony McCoy (Emmy winner Yahya Abdul-Mateen II; Watchmen, Us) and his partner, gallery director Brianna Cartwright (Teyonah Parris; If Beale Street Could Talk, WandaVision), move into a luxury loft condo in Cabrini, now gentrified beyond recognition and inhabited by upwardly mobile millennials. With Anthony’s painting career on the brink of stalling, a chance encounter with a Cabrini-Green old-timer (Colman Domingo;