“Commencing at the Siren, any and all crime, including murder, will be legal for 12 continuous hours. Police, fire and emergency medical services will be unavailable until tomorrow morning until 7 a.m. when the Purge concludes. Blessed be our New Founding Fathers and America, a Nation reborn. May God be with you all.”
On Sept. 4, “The Purge” will premiere on USA and Syfy as a television show with the same premise: For one night, people can commit crime without any consequences.
According to James DeMonaco, an executive producer, the series will be set between the events of the second and third film. The 10-episode series will explore the storylines of seemingly unrelated characters who are connected by a mysterious stranger and protector who is prepared for the inevitable night.
Viewers will follow the lives of characters before and during the purge, with flashbacks explaining their motivations leading up to the holiday. One such character is Miguel, a Marine played by Gabriel Chavarria. Some others that fans will meet include Jane, an investment firm employee who hires an assassin, and Good Leaver Tavis, who acts as a cult leader and a sacrifice to purgers.
The trailer was released at Comic-Con, which took place from July 19-22. Attendees also got the chance to hear from the cast members, producers and filmmakers from both the movie and show in a panel-type discussion.
At the beginning of the trailer, audiences see someone turn on a radio while a voice says, “What is America? America is, we’ve been told, the land of the free. So tell me then, what is more American than the purge?”
The series will continue to provide commentary about social and political instances. In the most recent movie released from the franchise, “The First Purge,” audience members were exposed to a variety of scenes that parallel the real world, such as police brutality against African Americans.
Jason Blum, the producer of the films, discussed how the team plans to make the series stand apart from the movies.
“We’re working on kind of exploring what it’s like to live the rest of the year in a world where you can kill someone on a certain day of the year. It definitely makes you think twice if you’re driving and you give someone the finger or something like that,“ Blum said.
“We’re definitely thinking about different things that might happen in a society where killing was legal 12 hours a year. You could commit a murder, and then somehow make it seem like it happened on Purge Night and get away with it.”
Although Blum and his team are committed to exploring all the different situations that could arise in the world of “The Purge,” the questions remains: Will this show be a huge success, or will it simply exhaust the continuous theme of the movies?
