The Purge Creators Have A 6th Script Ready To Go — With A Whole New Sci-Fi Direction
James DeMonaco's 2013 film "The Purge" featured a novel concept, but little else. Set in a dystopian near-future, "The Purge" referred to a government-mandated annual practice wherein all laws — including murder — were suspended for a 12-hour period. The idea was that American citizens were full of rage and resentment, and required a single night once a year to work through those feelings by killing off those who upset them. Come morning time, all laws are re-instigated and life can continue peacefully. Naturally, wealthy people can afford to protect their homes and gated communities, while the poor slaughter one another.
The first film is a limp home invasion story whose politics are merely bubbling in the background. But it was enough of a hit (it made nearly $90 million on a $3 million budget) that sequels were made with enthusiasm. In "The Purge: Anarchy" (2014) and especially "The Purge: Election Year" (2016), politics and analysis of class divisions became the series' primary highlight. "The Purge" quickly became one of the most forthrightly political film franchises of the decade. The themes were further explored in the prequel film "The First Purge" in 2018, and madness reigned in "The Forever Purge" in 2021. There was also a "Purge" TV series in 2018, and it lasted for two seasons.
As life in America has become increasingly grim and more oily would-be authoritarians float to the top of the political sewer, "The Purge" movies have felt more and more relevant with each passing year.
And DeMonaco isn't finished. According to a recent interview he conducted with Collider, a sixth "Purge" movie is currently in the works, and he fully intends to address the broken state of America in 2023.
The Non-United States
"The Purge" movies have always been sci-fi — even the prequel film is set in the future — but the future looks a lot like it does in the present; there aren't a lot of high-tech devices in the "Purge" movies, and there's little talk of, say, colonizing space, encountering aliens, or advanced medicine. By James DeMonaco's measure, the future will likely only see a devolution of our hate and resentment to the point of legally waived slaughter. By that measure, he compares his script for a sixth "Purge" movie to the politically flavored sci-fi thrillers of the 1960s and 1970s. He even name-checks a few titles, saying:
"'Purge 6' is my way of looking at the country now. I grew up watching 'Logan's Run' and 'Soylent Green' and John Carpenter and George Romero, whose sociopolitical messaging was within the films. They were smuggling ideas into the film. So for me for '6,' I was extrapolating on the discord and taking it to its furthest, as far as you can take that idea of what's going on, I feel, in the country and the political landscape. And it's a broken America."
Michael Anderson's "Logan's Run" was set in a future where the scant remaining members of humanity survived in vast, high-tech pleasure domes wherein all their food and sex were provided for free. But when a citizen turns 30, they are summarily executed. Richard Fleicher's 1973 film "Soylent Green" took place in a future where food was in short supply, save for government-distributed soylent crackers. Soylent green tasted like meat. You likely know what it's made from. John Carpenter's and George A. Romero's works also typically contain anti-fascist messages analyzing racism and consumerism. Watch "They Live" or "Dawn of the Dead" sometime and dare to say differently.
The horrifying vision of Marjorie Taylor Green
James DeMonaco clarified that his new film will be more aggressively political, notably about what's happening in America in 2023. He sees deep divisions and potential violence. There may be no better realm to explore the potential violence of the modern political state than within the confines of a "Purge" movie. DeMonaco said:
"We're remapping. ['The Purge 6'] is about the remapping of America based on ideology, sexuality and religion, so that the states are broken down. You have your Black state, you have your gay state, you have your white evangelical state. And it's really a broken country."
Lest anyone thinks that DeMonaco is trying to paint "both sides" of the political spectrum as being equally bad, know that his vision is clearer than that. Indeed, he called out the Republican House member Marjorie Taylor Greene by name. Greene is a villainous figure in American politics, typically proposing massively extreme viewpoints such as the execution of political rivals, that Democrats should not be permitted to vote, and that wild and easily disproven conspiracy theories like QAnon and Pizzagate are indeed real. DeMonaco sees that a segregated, legally divided country is what someone like Greene envisions for the future. If American citizens are neatly divided by race and class, she seems to feel, then conflict would merely disappear. DeMonaco intends to use "The Purge 6" to attack that notion. He said:
"What's so strange is that Marjorie Taylor Greene — I'm not gonna say more than her name there — recently wished for an America like that, which to me would be the most nightmarish version. It goes against everything that America stands for."
DeMonaco feels that a House Divided is a recipe for terror. "The Purge 6" will continue the political tradition.