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http://www.thenerdelement.com/2018/09/04/the-purge-film-franchise-expands-to-television-sdcc-2018/
At the end of The First Purge (2018), the fourth entry in the now-franchise that began with 2013’s The Purge, audiences who stayed through the credits were treated to a teaser trailer for the upcoming TV series (also titled The Purge) on the USA Network. It was a nice surprise announcement for fans; it even surprised actors from the latest film installment.
“We didn’t know about it,” said Lex Scott Davis, who stars as Nya in the film. “We were like, ‘Oh, that’s awesome!’ because we’re all fans of the franchise.”
The Purge TV series is a joint effort between USA and the SyFy Channel, the latter of which will simulcast the premiere and season finale episodes, and stars Fiona Dourif, Amanda Warren, and Gabriel Chavarria, all of whom were present, along with Davis and producer Brad Fuller, at roundtable interviews at San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) 2018 to promote the show, which begins September 4th at 10 p.m./9 p.m. Central. The show also stars William Baldwin and Reed Diamond. There will be 10 episodes covering one Purge night, which takes place 10 years after the events depicted in The First Purge.
Fuller and Davis sat down together for an interview at SDCC to discuss the Purge franchise as a whole, as well as the new series. Fuller is a prolific producer whose credits include all of the Purge films and this year’s horror hit, A Quiet Place, as well as TV series The Last Ship (2014-18), Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (2018), and Black Sails (2014-17). Davis’ previous roles include Georgia in SuperFly (2018), Toni Braxton in the TV movie Toni Braxton: Unbreak My Heart (2016), and Alyse Craig in the TV version of Training Day (2017).
The Nerd Element asked whether Davis felt the energy of the political commentary while she was filming The First Purge.
“It’s right there in your face,” she said. “There’s images depicted, there are costumes and masks that are worn that say a lot without saying anything at all,” she continued. “You could definitely feel it. It came to life when we were there filming it.”
The Nerd Element also asked if Davis would be in the TV show, to which Fuller responded, “She was unavailable to do the show. She was filming the movie.” Davis laughed.
“It’s 10 years later and I believe some of the characters have family members who died during my Purge,” Davis said, to which Fuller noted, “That’s true.” Davis added, “I don’t think we’ll see the same actors again just because of the time depicted and just like the rest of the franchise, you see new faces.”
When The Nerd Element asked about the new series, comparisons to the movies inevitable came up.
“Honestly, the show is different from the movie,” Fuller said. “There’s a much longer time to get to know these characters that allows us the ability to see how the Purge affects their life before the Purge happens, and how it affects your life going into the Purge, and the questions they ask themselves. [I]f they want to participate in the Purge is kind of a key component to the television show.”
“Whereas in the movie,” Fuller noted, “it feels like Lex’s character’s thrust into this horrible, horrible situation where she’s trying to do the right thing, and all around her there’s hell” Fuller added that Nya is “the moral fiber of the movie to maintain some optimism in a very negative world.”
“For the television show,” Fuller noted, “we don’t know if anyone’s going to tune in or not. I’m hopeful, I’m really hopeful that they do.” Fuller said that the show depicts more of the effect on the character’s lives, adding that “it’s not as violent as the movies are. And there is a part of that violence that people respond to, and as a company that predominantly makes horror movies, we love that part of moviemaking and making those types of films, so we’ll see where it goes.”
Fuller also took a deeper look into the movies versus what audiences can expect from the show, saying that the “stories that we tell in the television show—I’m not sure they work in a movie.” Fuller said the show “feels different” from the films; whereas the movies are more quickly paced to deliver action, in the show, “the pacing is a little bit slower and a little bit more methodical. I think James [DeMonaco, producer and creator of The Purge films and show] just had stories in his head that he wasn’t able to fit into the movie,” he said.
The Nerd Element asked if the series would show more of what life is like on non-Purge nights because the movies don’t really have time to expand on that. Fuller said that “the show predominantly takes place on Purge night, but in order to understand the situations that all of our characters are in, you have to see what their life was before that. [T]hat’s what you get with the show—you have the time to show that, to get to feel what these people are.”
One thing the show will have less of than the films is the level of gore audiences have grown to expect from a Purge entry. Fuller began that the show is “not as grisly as the movies,” and that scenes of violence are shot differently, including “a scene where someone is getting hacked to death [that’s] done in a, dare I say, artistic way because there’s not meat flying everywhere. It’s in silhouette.” Fuller noted that he didn’t know “if that would work in a movie, but it certainly works in the TV show.”
Fuller responded to another question about the pacing of the show that it would not be a 24-style real-time telling of a Purge night. He said that he didn’t “want to say that it’s soapy because that would be the wrong way to characterize it,” adding that “it’s a group of characters who have nothing to do with each other who all have an agenda on that night; you learn where that agenda came from and you wonder whether or not they’re going to execute what they want to execute.”
“It’s not all of them wanting to kill someone,” he noted. “Some of them want to keep someone from getting killed.” But for those who do want to kill someone for the first time, the TV series will delve into the toll it takes “on your soul and your conscience,” Fuller said.
Will the television version be the fifth installment of the franchise or not?
“My answer might be different from my other partners, [Jason] Blum
and DeMonaco,” Fuller stated, “but at the end of the day, I wouldn’t want to keep them separate. I would want to keep the movies going. I think the two lead characters in the most recent Purge are incredibly likable, and as a viewer and a fan of the franchise, I would want to see what happened to them after this Purge happened, so I would definitely want to do another. I’d want to do a fifth Purge and see where that goes.”The post The Purge Film Franchise Expands to Television – SDCC 2018 appeared first on The Nerd Element.
At the end of The First Purge (2018), the fourth entry in the now-franchise that began with 2013’s The Purge, audiences who stayed through the credits were treated to a teaser trailer for the upcoming TV series (also titled The Purge) on the USA Network. It was a nice surprise announcement for fans; it even surprised actors from the latest film installment.
“We didn’t know about it,” said Lex Scott Davis, who stars as Nya in the film. “We were like, ‘Oh, that’s awesome!’ because we’re all fans of the franchise.”
The Purge TV series is a joint effort between USA and the SyFy Channel, the latter of which will simulcast the premiere and season finale episodes, and stars Fiona Dourif, Amanda Warren, and Gabriel Chavarria, all of whom were present, along with Davis and producer Brad Fuller, at roundtable interviews at San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) 2018 to promote the show, which begins September 4th at 10 p.m./9 p.m. Central. The show also stars William Baldwin and Reed Diamond. There will be 10 episodes covering one Purge night, which takes place 10 years after the events depicted in The First Purge.
Fuller and Davis sat down together for an interview at SDCC to discuss the Purge franchise as a whole, as well as the new series. Fuller is a prolific producer whose credits include all of the Purge films and this year’s horror hit, A Quiet Place, as well as TV series The Last Ship (2014-18), Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (2018), and Black Sails (2014-17). Davis’ previous roles include Georgia in SuperFly (2018), Toni Braxton in the TV movie Toni Braxton: Unbreak My Heart (2016), and Alyse Craig in the TV version of Training Day (2017).
The Nerd Element asked whether Davis felt the energy of the political commentary while she was filming The First Purge.
“It’s right there in your face,” she said. “There’s images depicted, there are costumes and masks that are worn that say a lot without saying anything at all,” she continued. “You could definitely feel it. It came to life when we were there filming it.”
The Nerd Element also asked if Davis would be in the TV show, to which Fuller responded, “She was unavailable to do the show. She was filming the movie.” Davis laughed.
“It’s 10 years later and I believe some of the characters have family members who died during my Purge,” Davis said, to which Fuller noted, “That’s true.” Davis added, “I don’t think we’ll see the same actors again just because of the time depicted and just like the rest of the franchise, you see new faces.”
When The Nerd Element asked about the new series, comparisons to the movies inevitable came up.
“Honestly, the show is different from the movie,” Fuller said. “There’s a much longer time to get to know these characters that allows us the ability to see how the Purge affects their life before the Purge happens, and how it affects your life going into the Purge, and the questions they ask themselves. [I]f they want to participate in the Purge is kind of a key component to the television show.”
“Whereas in the movie,” Fuller noted, “it feels like Lex’s character’s thrust into this horrible, horrible situation where she’s trying to do the right thing, and all around her there’s hell” Fuller added that Nya is “the moral fiber of the movie to maintain some optimism in a very negative world.”
“For the television show,” Fuller noted, “we don’t know if anyone’s going to tune in or not. I’m hopeful, I’m really hopeful that they do.” Fuller said that the show depicts more of the effect on the character’s lives, adding that “it’s not as violent as the movies are. And there is a part of that violence that people respond to, and as a company that predominantly makes horror movies, we love that part of moviemaking and making those types of films, so we’ll see where it goes.”
Fuller also took a deeper look into the movies versus what audiences can expect from the show, saying that the “stories that we tell in the television show—I’m not sure they work in a movie.” Fuller said the show “feels different” from the films; whereas the movies are more quickly paced to deliver action, in the show, “the pacing is a little bit slower and a little bit more methodical. I think James [DeMonaco, producer and creator of The Purge films and show] just had stories in his head that he wasn’t able to fit into the movie,” he said.
The Nerd Element asked if the series would show more of what life is like on non-Purge nights because the movies don’t really have time to expand on that. Fuller said that “the show predominantly takes place on Purge night, but in order to understand the situations that all of our characters are in, you have to see what their life was before that. [T]hat’s what you get with the show—you have the time to show that, to get to feel what these people are.”
One thing the show will have less of than the films is the level of gore audiences have grown to expect from a Purge entry. Fuller began that the show is “not as grisly as the movies,” and that scenes of violence are shot differently, including “a scene where someone is getting hacked to death [that’s] done in a, dare I say, artistic way because there’s not meat flying everywhere. It’s in silhouette.” Fuller noted that he didn’t know “if that would work in a movie, but it certainly works in the TV show.”
Fuller responded to another question about the pacing of the show that it would not be a 24-style real-time telling of a Purge night. He said that he didn’t “want to say that it’s soapy because that would be the wrong way to characterize it,” adding that “it’s a group of characters who have nothing to do with each other who all have an agenda on that night; you learn where that agenda came from and you wonder whether or not they’re going to execute what they want to execute.”
“It’s not all of them wanting to kill someone,” he noted. “Some of them want to keep someone from getting killed.” But for those who do want to kill someone for the first time, the TV series will delve into the toll it takes “on your soul and your conscience,” Fuller said.
Will the television version be the fifth installment of the franchise or not?
“My answer might be different from my other partners, [Jason] Blum [one of the Purge producers and the founder and CEO of Blumhouse Productions] and DeMonaco,” Fuller stated, “but at the end of the day, I wouldn’t want to keep them separate. I would want to keep the movies going. I think the two lead characters in the most recent Purge are incredibly likable, and as a viewer and a fan of the franchise, I would want to see what happened to them after this Purge happened, so I would definitely want to do another. I’d want to do a fifth Purge and see where that goes.”
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As mentioned in our main Purge article, actors Fiona Dourif, Amanda Warren, and Gabriel Chavarria, who star in The Purge TV show, were also present at SDCC 2018 to discuss their roles in the show and whatever else about it they were allowed to say without major spoilers.
Dourif plays Good Leader Tavis on the new show. She was recently seen in the TV series, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (2016-17), as Bart Curlish, and is the daughter of actor Brad Dourif, who horror fans will remember as the voice of killer doll Chucky from the Child’s Play franchise. Some of her other credits include Lillian Roth on the TV series The Blacklist (2018), Nica Pierce in films Curse of Chucky (2013) and Cult of Chucky (2017), Dana in the film Arbor Demon (2016), and as Casey in the 2011 season of TV’s True Blood.
Warren plays Jane. Her previous credits include Denise in the Academy Award-winning film, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), Mayor Zahra Taylor on NCIS: New Orleans (2017-18), Angelica in the Black Museum episode of Black Mirror (2017), Lynn Jackson in Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017), and Lucy Warburton on the 2014 season of The Leftovers.
Gabriel Chavarria plays Miguel, a U.S. Marine. He was recently seen as Preacher in War For The Planet Of The Apes (2017), played Jacob Aguilar in the series East Los High (2013-16), and was Danny in the Blumhouse Productions movie Lowriders (2016), which also starred Demián Bichir, Theo Rossi, and Eva Longoria.
Below are excerpts from the three’s separate roundtable conversations, compiled under similar topics that were discussed in each interview:
On each actor’s character
Fiona Dourif: I play a character that was written for a man, which is really fun. I play a cult leader who guides young, innocent children to their death. [She laughs.] It’s so fun.
I play a girl who was—a woman, not a girl—who was a counselor, like a drug rehab counselor for kids who were in trouble. [I]t was in that very vulnerable setting that I meet these kids and they come under my wing.
I love my children, I love them dearly. [I]t’s in 2018 that women get to play somebody this driven and not sexualized at all. I mean, I could have gained 50 pounds for this role and nobody would’ve ever noticed.
It’s fun. [She’s] a strong person.
Amanda Warren: Jane’s a very young, driven Ivy League-educated workhorse of a woman with one of the strongest moral compasses I’ve ever played in my professional career. [S]he’s a self-made woman in a white collar finance world in today’s day and age.
She’s a good, good woman, good like Juliet of “Romeo and Juliet,” which is the last kind of woman I’ve played next to this character. So with that and with the conflict of the Purge, there’s a lot of changes, and with the changes, a lot of moral and ethical dilemmas that she’s faced with and encounters throughout the night.
Gabriel Chavarria: I’ve been fortunate to be a part of projects in the past that have had military stuff, that kinda had that role I had to play, so I carried that with me to this project.
Who’s my favorite character on the show? I really like Amanda’s character, Jane. Her character is very strong. Honestly, they’re all great, but Miguel is a badass.
On what they’re excited for in the series
Dourif: I think the series is really fun. I think courage is a really big idea. I think it’s the perfect format for TV because there’s so much you can do. [T]he whole season takes place on one Purge night, so there’s a lot of violence, a lot of character development.
Warren: What I’m most excited about viewers seeing or experiencing with the television series of The Purge is the character development, which my great hope is people will become emotionally invested with [it] because it is 10 hours of really compelling writing, of really compelling storytelling on television.
Chavarria: This show is crazy; you guys have no idea what you’re gonna get yourself into. [MILD SPOILERS:] There’s this thing in the show that my character has to [attempt]; it’s called The Gauntlet and it’s basically the American Ninja Warrior of death. [T]hat happens in episode two. So just know at the beginning it starts off right into the madness.
I think our creators did a freaking amazing job of creating these characters, creating this storyline, and really exploring what a TV show can do with the franchise of The Purge.
On their favorite episodes so far
Warren: Episode three, and episode five is pretty great. Things really start to happen for [Jane] in episode three.
Chavarria: Oh there’s an episode, I think it’s three or four, there’s these guys called the Bloody Nuns, and man, they look cool. They look so freaky—I don’t want to tell you too much, but I come across these guys, and as we’re filming this scene, they’re supposed to be very creepy on the script. On set, when they call “Action!” I was like, “Damn!” Everything about that sequence was—it wasn’t acting, it was “This is spooky!”
On the TV series vs. the films
Dourif: I think the TV series might be a little less didactic or not. [T]he social commentary is there, but it’s less than that because there’s so much more time to get to know the characters.
I think the coolest element about this show is how creative the gangs are that run around. [MILD SPOILERS:] A woman pushing another dead woman in a shopping cart with her. She was being like a dead vacuum cleaner or something. There was a piñata man—like, there’s a piñata and he’s killed that way.
Warren: There’s a lot of different tones, but we stay true to the premise of the franchise.
Chavarria: The Purge is perfect for a television show. It’s like watching ten mini-movies for our show. It’s gonna be fun.
On if they’re a fan of the Purge series and/or would they participate in the Purge night or not
Dourif: Do you want the answer I’ve been giving all day? “Yeah, all my ex-boyfriends!” But no, I couldn’t kill anybody. I mean, on Purge night, you don’t have to just kill, you can just—it can be mayhem. I think I’d be curious about adrenaline. I’d probably go out.
I think you can be anonymous. I think everyone’s in those crazy masks because they’re anonymous.
Warren: Well, I’ll tell you right now, I was very reluctant to see the Ethan Hawke feature because I already found it to be a horrific premise because people are capable of anything and everything.
It is horrific in its premise, so it took me awhile. I had to wait for it to come to cable television to have my first experience. Mr. Hawke is such a creative force; I was just kind of in it and escaped in his journey and the journey of those around him. [A]nd then Mr. Grillo with the two follow-ups and now Lex Scott Davis, a female leading the pack of the features, it’s really refreshing.
I have to tell you, after seeing The First Purge a week and a half ago, I’m really encouraged about people being excited for the television series.
Chavarria: Absolutely. I saw The Purge when it first came out and I thought it was great. I thought it was a very cool, different kind of idea. The ideas [are] a little exaggerated, but it’s fun. I think that’s what makes James DeMonaco and all the other creators great because they turned such a simple idea into this crazy franchise. And then I caught up with the rest of them and they all got better and better.
On the level of violence in the show
Dourif: What I’ve seen of the pilot, there’s actually not that much; there’s not really gore, but I do think it was pretty successful with suspense. Did you guys see Hereditary? I really liked Hereditary; I liked the pace. But towards the middle end of that movie, I was rolling out of my seat, and the movie theater started laughing, which was really helpful. I feel like it [the show] was like that for me. It was suspenseful, and I think it was successful in creating me wanting to crawl out of my skin without necessarily seeing any gore. I don’t know. I think it works. I think horror fans will really like it.
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