‘The Purge 6’ Script Is Finished, Says James DeMonaco

The Purge creator James DeMonaco has already finished the script for The Purge 6, which will star Frank Grillo and explore life after America’s collapse. Speaking with Variety to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the beloved horror franchise, DeMonaco also underlined how his twisted universe was born from his hate of guns.

Set in the near future, The Purge imagines a time when the United States holds an annual holiday where any kind of crime is legal, including murder. While the concept allowed DeMonaco to twist the home invasion formula, the franchise is mainly known for using horror to discuss critical political subjects, such as gentrification and the mass murder of the poor masses. In the last film in the franchise, The Forever Purge, DeMonaco took the Purge to its logical end when the angy elites of America decided to keep purging beyond the limits of the law. That caused the destruction of American democracy, with citizens feeling to Mexico to save their lives.

The Forever Purge was supposed to be the last chapter in the franchise, but in 2021 DeMonaco told us he had changed his mind. Now, the filmmaker reveals he finished the script for The Purge 6 eight months ago and that the story will bring back Grillo’s Leo Barnes, a key character of The Purge: Anarchy and The Purge: Election Year. The upcoming sequel will also allow DeMonaco to explore the reality of a country divided by ideologies. As DeMonaco explains:

“It’s [The Purge 6] not completely different than previous movies, but it’s a new America that we’re entering into. In ‘The Forever Purge,’ America kind of collapsed, and it’s really kind of mapped itself according to different ideologies. The states are based on sexuality, religion and ideology. So we’ve broken apart and the state of discord is at its worst. We enter The Purge in that world.”

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James DeMonaco Anti-Gun Stance Led to the Creation of The Purge

While The Purge became a worldwide phenomenon, with five movies and a two-season TV show, DeMonaco wrote the first script to exorcize some of his fears regarding gun violence. As he puts it, “I had this little, strange, dark indictment of American gun culture. I hate guns. To me, the scariest thing in the world would be a night when everyone was armed and it was legal to use these firearms. To me, there was nothing scarier than that notion.” Unfortunately, DeMonaco realizes many people missed the message. So, instead of contemplating the horrors that can come from indiscriminate access to firearms, people usually discuss what they would do in a real-life Purge event. And as DeMonaco puts it, America’s rage-fueled political disputes have only worsened in the decade after the first movie was released, bringing reality closer to fiction. In DeMonaco’s words:

“I think people question what they would do in that situation,” he said. “But I was hoping to put a mirror up to our own society and our relationship with violence and guns. Also the political climate I saw rising over a decade ago, when I wrote the piece, has gotten even more pronounced in the eight years since Trump. This discord that’s rising in the body politic… that’s gotten worse and worse, and we just kept reflecting that.”

There’s no release date for The Purge 6. All previous The Purge movies are available on 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray.