How Did THE FIRST PURGE Come About?
Mike Sprague
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This July we will see the beginnings of The Purge universe with the prequel The First Purge. Franchise creator James DeMonaco recently spoke to EW and dropped a new official image (which you can see above) and also talked a bit about how this first purge came to be.
Marisa Tomei’s characters is a psychologist who is responsible for the idea of the Purge, and Demonaco says, “She feels that a societal catharsis would be good. She is a psychologist who has created the Purge, and she actually does believe it’s something that society needs. It’s a very angry society. She’s seen a citizenry that is rioting quite often in the country. She actually believes in — it’s a weird thing to say — the purity of what the Purge might do and she wants to try the experiment. She doesn’t see that the government, the NFFA, who’s putting it into effect has a completely different agenda.”
But why would Staten Island residents agree to be Purge guinea pigs?
“There’s a monetary component, meaning if you participate, and you stay on the island during the Purge, you will receive a $5,000 stipend,” says DeMonaco. “So, mostly, poor people stay and rich people leave. But obviously there’s twists and turns, and government manipulation, and all these allusions to the Trump administration.”
Was that DeMonaco’s idea to post the film’s teaser during this year’s State of the Union address?
“No, I wish it was, man,” he says. “Universal marketing has always — and I give them credit for this — you know, they’re very subversive. The movies are subversive, and they’ve pushed the subversive angle, and they jumped on that, and I think they saw the script was subversive in a way that they could use, and they always push the political content. Is [the film] about Trump? Listen, I think good science fiction puts a mirror up to society. What people respond to with The Purge is that it is reflecting on our times, where many people feel that they’re not being taken care of. So, I think that it definitely reflects what’s happening right now.”
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The film is directed by Gerard McMurray from a screenplay by James DeMonaco and stars Y’Lan Noel, Lex Scott Davis, Joivan Wade, Luna Lauren Velez and Marisa Tomei.
The First Purge begins July 4th, 2018.
Synopsis:
Behind every tradition lies a revolution. Next Independence Day, witness the rise of our country’s 12 hours of annual lawlessness. Welcome to the movement that began as a simple experiment: The First Purge. To push the crime rate below one percent for the rest of the year, the New Founding Fathers of America (NFFA) test a sociological theory that vents aggression for one night in one isolated community. But when the violence of oppressors meets the rage of the marginalized, the contagion will explode from the trial-city borders and spread across the nation.
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