Blessed be The Purge 4 with its new title, plot details, and release date!

The horror news wires were lit up yesterday as details of the next The Purge film came to light. Writer and director James DeMonaco of the series has released new plot details and the title of the next entry in series. Below is what we have learned and what you should know.

In an interview with Vulture, DeMonaco said directing duties would fall to Gerard McMurray, with DeMonaco still involved as writer. The title of the next film will be The Purge: The Island slated for a release date of July 4th, 2018. According to DeMonaco this entry will focus around the origin of the Purge and its first test run in Staten Island in New York City, hence the title The Island.

The plot will involve the New Founding Fathers and their plan to jump-start a dying economy with the Purge. The film attempts to explain why people would partake in the Purge and the motivating force behind it. Well that’s an easy answer; in a word, money.

DeMonaco said this about the movie:

"“I was wondering how you get people to stay for the first Purge, and what they do is they start monetizing it. People from Staten Island can easily go to Brooklyn for the evening, so what they do is start promising very decent sums of money for the very poor people in the neighborhood. It becomes a monetization of murder and violence, incentivizing killing and keeping people around for them to be victims. So you see the inception of how grotesque the idea of the Purge is, and the manipulation upon the society.”"

1428 Elm has not been able to pin down whether or not Frank Grillo would be returning as Sergeant Leo Barnes. With the new film shifting to New York and Grillo’s apprehension about reprising the role all signs point to probably not. An article by Collider in January, quoted Grillo as saying “And so, when Election Year was even more successful, they were like, ‘Let’s keep doing this!’ I was like, ‘Maybe. I think I might be done, but you should keep doing it!” 

Courtesy Blumhouse Productions

In other Purge news, James DeMonaco also spoke about the upcoming The Purge television series currently in development. According to him the series will focus on events during the middle period of the timeline. Allegedly it will take place between the events of The Island leading up to The Purge: Election Year.  According to Blumhouse, SyFy and the USA network will begin airing the show sometime in 2018.

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With the new details released it seems that 2018 will be the year of the Purge. The stories that could be crafted around the concept of the Purge are endless. I’m excited for new stories of the Purge universe and the social commentary is elicits. Blessed be our New Founding Fathers and America, a nation reborn.