Directed by Everardo Gout (Days of Grace) and written by James DeMonaco (the creator of The Purge franchise), the latest installment The Forever Purge shows what can happen when one night of mayhem and murder is no longer enough. When a rogue group of masked purgers decides not to end the annual Purge at daybreak and instead shows up on a Texas ranch, the family there, along with a Mexican couple, find themselves having to band together and fight back, if they have any chance at survival. The film stars Ana de la Reguera, Tenoch Huerta, Josh Lucas, Cassidy Freeman, Leven Rambin, Alejandro Edda, and Will Patton.

During this virtual 1-on-1 interview with Collider, which you can both watch and read, DeMonaco dove deep into the franchise and talked about things evolved from one film to a series of movies, further exploring different aspects of the Purge through the two-season TV series, that The Forever Purge was originally meant to be the final installment in the franchise, and now having an idea for Purge 6 that he hopes to tell. He also talked about what audiences can expect from his upcoming flick This is the Night (formerly Once Upon a Time in Staten Island), and how he’s hoping to cast Pete Davidson in his next film.

Collider: I should probably say up front that I’m a big fan of the Purge franchise. I’ve seen all of the films and every episode of the TV show.

JAMES DeMONACO: Oh, really? That’s cool. That’s rare. I like that.

I very much appreciate how it’s continued to evolve because it could have very much taken the safe route and it hasn’t.

DeMONACO: Thank you. That means a lot.

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Image via Universal Pictures

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When you wrote and directed the original film, did you have a bigger vision for a franchise that it could eventually evolve into, or did you see it as one film?

DeMONACO: I didn’t have a vision. I’m not gonna lie. It was originally conceived as what I really thought it would be – this tiny little indie that I’d shoot for a million bucks and it would show at the Angelika in New York. I thought it would just be this tiny indie that didn’t really have much commercial value at all. As people were talking about the script, they just thought it was incredibly dark and demented and twisted and anti-American, and all this stuff. So, I didn’t have much beyond that. I was like, “Oh, I’ll do this one. It’ll be a one-off and I’ll move on, hopefully, to something else, if I’m lucky enough to make another film.” And then, (producer) Jason [Blum] saw a bigger potential than I saw.

While I was shooting [the first] one, it started to feel like the conceit of the movie was large. We’re saying that the streets of America are running rampant with all of this legalized violence, so I thought there was gonna be a portion of the audience, understandably, that was gonna be somewhat upset that we were confined to a house. I used to joke on set saying, “Hey, if we’re a hit and we get to do a part two,” which I thought was the most outlandish thing in the world to say, “we’re going to go on the streets of New York and show purging outside.” That was the conceit, that part two would be much bigger, which is not really a vision of anything. So, to be quite honest, we really thought it would be one and out.

When did you realize that potential was there and you were going to have to go back and figure out what to do next?

DeMONACO: Honestly, it wasn’t until that Friday of opening. The week of opening, I remember talking to my agent and saying, “So, what’s a decent opening? Where do I not feel like a failure in the eyes of Hollywood and I can make another film?” I was just looking very practically at that. And he was like, “Oh, if you do 10 or 11 [million], that’s a good opening.” I was like, “Oh, okay.” It was a very cheap film. And then, we opened to that crazy weekend where we did 17 [million] on that Friday, and we ended up making 38 million. We had a crazy opening and we realized, at that point, that everybody was calling and saying, “You need to start thinking of the future of the franchise.” And it was a word I’d never even heard or thought of before. At that point, I started saying, “Okay, let me start thinking of the bigger themes here that I’m dealing with – racial discord, racial inequality, horror and action. How do we open this up?” I went back to the movies that I loved as a kid. Escape from New York and The Warriors were great influences on me. When I think of the greatest B-movies ever made, that inspired me to make the rest of the series, at that point.

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Image via Universal

After doing Anarchy and Election Year, what made you then decide to hand off The First Purge and The Forever Purge to other filmmakers to direct?

DeMONACO: After the first three happened so fast, I was burnt out. I did think, initially, that the third one might be the last one, stupidly. I know I was being very naive. If things make money, I know people want more of them, but I was still thinking, “I’m creatively finished. I’ve told my trilogy.” I also had written another script that I really wanted to make, in between the Purges. Around that time, Jason said he could get the money for the other script I had written and I was so focused on that, but then I had written Purge 4. They asked for it and I came up with an idea for Purge 4, which was the inception of the Purge in my hometown of Staten Island. And then, I also started thinking that it would be really great to bring in filmmakers who could bring a new perspective into this world. Yes, I’ll write them, but then we could get someone else to come in and add something new to my voice alone. Not that it was becoming stale. I hope that it wasn’t becoming stale, but it would be nice to get some new viewpoints. That’s when Gerard [McMurray] came into it, with Purge 4.

How do you feel about the TV show’s placement within the franchise? Would you have wanted to continue doing that, or do you feel that you accomplished what you had hoped to?

DeMONACO: No, between you and I, I wish the TV show went on. I had an idea for Season 3, that I was very excited by. I oversaw the show. I wasn’t showrunning, but we had great showrunners both years, and I was working very closely with them. So, we had more places that we wanted to explore. We were thinking of even going overseas for one of the Purge seasons, with the conceit being that parts of American culture and American society obviously go, so what happens if the Purge starts to spread around the world, the way music does or movies. We wanted to really continue it. USA, unfortunately, for various reasons politically, and I don’t know if they’re even making any original fare anymore. I heard they’re not. Maybe there’ll be a permutation in the future to continue it. What I liked about the TV show was the real estate of having 10 hours to explore the Purge conceit. It was a way to do things like how Season 2 was between Purges. We could never do that in a movie, ever. It was fun to go into the stuff that we could never go into with the films.

When you wrote The Forever Purge, did you approach it as the final installment in the franchise? Is that how you thought of it? Is that how you still think of it?

DeMONACO: I did completely, up until four months ago. It was the complete final stage. It was in. It ended with America on fire. Me and (director) Everardo [Gout] were like, “This is it. This is how we’re ending it.” And then, I woke up four months ago and I had a new idea. I pitched it to everybody and they really liked it, so if the audience wants it and the cinema gods tell us we can do it, I think we have another one that we’d be excited to do.

Is that the one that you had talked about possibly bringing Frank Grillo back for?

DeMONACO: Yes. How did you know?

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Image via Universal

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Frank Grillo told me about it.

DeMONACO: I’m not on social media, but I got calls from people saying, “Frank is talking about a Purge 6 that he’s gonna be in.” I was like, “That son of a bitch! I told him secretly.” He’s so excited. I love that character. I was the first one that was like, “This is the perfect way to bring him back. It would be so fun for the audience.” If he’s in it, maybe I would love to direct it with him. It would be really fun.

The setup for this film is so relevant and the role that Mexico plays in the story is really quite brilliant. What were the initial ideas that you wanted to explore in this, and did that evolve and change at all, as you worked on it?

DeMONACO: Yeah, a little bit. The strangest part of all this was that I initially called everybody and said, “I’m gonna do a love story in Purge 5.” And they were like, “What?! What are you saying? Have you gone mad?” And I was like, “No. I wanna do this couple who are so in love and they’re coming up from Mexico together, and they’re getting away from the cartel violence, and they’re seeking the American dream. It’s an exploration of whether the American dream is still alive, or is it dead?” Everybody thought I was nuts. They were like, “What do you mean? What are you making, an independent film? What are you talking about?” But the border crisis was really informing a lot of what I was thinking about and I’d always wanted to do a movie about this intense, passionate couple. So, that was always the initial idea.

And then, I coupled that with the idea that I knew I had to flip purging on its head. Doing another 12-hour window would’ve been boring. We had to flip it up and do something different. I also wanted to do something in a different color palette and something outside of the city. All of these things were coming together, and then the idea of the Forever Purge just hit me one day. Why would people stop? It’s almost like an infection that they can’t contain. Purge 5 is like a zombie film. It’s this uncontainable force. In a weird way, it’s almost like a faceless entity is running rampant in America. So, yeah, it evolved, but those were the initial thoughts. And then, Everardo came in and his beautiful influence was just calling me out on my bullshit and saying, “Mexicans don’t speak like this, JD. Let’s get this right.” He brought that to the table, which was wonderful.

I love the cast that Everardo Gout brought to this, especially with Ana de la Reguera and Tenoch Huerta.

DeMONACO: At our first meeting, he said those two names. I knew Ana, but I didn’t know Tenoch. I knew a little bit of Narcos, but we watched his work and then we showed it to the studio, and everybody was on board. They’re wonderful actors, you can’t deny it.

It seems like horror in the daytime just wouldn’t be scary, but somehow it’s still terrifying.

DeMONACO: It is, right? Isn’t it weird? That’s what I said. I knew we had to do daytime. I was like, “We have to get out of the night,” and that’s what The Forever Purge allowed us. But the way that (cinematographer) Luis [David Sansans] and Everardo lit it, it has this hazy brightness, that’s so creepy to me, with the masks and the sun. I love it. It’s fun.

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Image via Universal Pictures

You also reunited with Frank Grillo for Once Upon a Time in Staten Island.

DeMONACO: Yes.

Are we going to get to see that soon?

DeMONACO: Yeah. I just got word that maybe in two or three months from now, it’ll have some kind of release. I don’t know the exact [details]. I can’t speak to that. But I got good news that it’s gonna come out. I’m really proud of it. I think it’s such a departure for me, from the Purge world. It’s about my love of cinema. We changed the title though. We didn’t wanna compete with Quentin [Tarantino]’s film, so it’s gonna be This is the Night. It’s about my love of cinema. It’s about May 28, 1982, the night Rocky 3 opens in theaters around the country and how it inspires the Italian Americans of Staten Island to do things they’ve never done before, that are courageous. We follow one family on that night. Frank plays the dad in that family. He has a scene at the end of the movie that I can’t wait for people to see. It’s the best acting I’ve ever seen him do.

Do you know what’s next for you, as a filmmaker? Are you someone who’s always writing and developing things?

DeMONACO: Yeah. I wrote something with a buddy of mine – a guy from the neighborhood. We were in the same bubble, so we saw each other. He’s the only other person I saw, other than my wife and daughter, and we’d sit in my backyard and we started riffing on ideas. He’s a movie fanatic. We came up with an idea and I was like, “That’s good.” So, we wrote it together over the break, and we gave it to (producer) Sébastien [Lemercier] and Jason, and Jason greenlit the film. We’re trying to cast it now. We’re trying to get a friend of mine, who lives up the street in Staten Island, Pete Davidson from The King of Staten Island, but in a serious role, not a funny role. It’s a psychological horror, and we’re hoping maybe to shoot in October. Fingers crossed, that would be the next thing up. That would be cool. And then, maybe if people want it, Purge 6 would be probably the end of next year, or something like that, if we did it. But you never know. Anything could happen with the Purge, so you never know. I’ve gotta pray people go back to [the theater]. I’m so nervous about that. I’m a theater fanatic. My whole movie, This is the Night, is about the sanctity of the theater going experience. I’m so worried about that. I just need people to go back.

Do you have a favorite film in the Purge series, or is that too hard to choose?

DeMONACO: No, I actually do, but I shouldn’t say. That would get people mad. I do, though. I really like Purge 5. So that I don’t get anyone angry, I’ll give one of my top two. Purge 5 is in my top two. I won’t give the other one because then I know I’ll get someone mad. Two of the men in the series are very competitive with each other, but I won’t say who.

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With Purge bunnies, Purge cowboys and even Purge construction workers, do you have a favorite Purge look in this film?

DeMONACO: Purge construction workers cracked me up. My favorite Purge look? It’s weird, I usually design all of the masks in the films, but I didn’t design them this time. I was off shooting. I really like the bunnies. The bunnies were great., with that contraption. I wrote that contraption, but they did it better than I wrote it. It’s so cool. So, the bunnies were really good. I also love the actor who plays Kirk (Will Brittain), the Purge cowboy who takes the family. I think he’s wonderful, so I liked that look too.

And it’s not just the mask. It’s a full look this time.

DeMONACO: Yeah, it’s a whole outfit this time. Even the bunny outfit is a full body outfit. It’s not just [a mask], which is cool.

Now you know what you’ll see on Halloween.

DeMONACO: Exactly! It’s true. In the neighborhood that I live in, it’s funny, people knock on my door and kids dress up as Purge characters. Every year, we always get kids that are dressed up and I’m like, “I think this is a good thing.” Sometimes it worries me.

I love to the whole last stand sequence when they’re having to run that gauntlet of a tank, explosions, and all of the shooting. How much of that gets written on the page and how much of that is how it has to be planned out once you’re there?

DeMONACO: For the crew, we have to always write it. I wrote a sequence in El Paso, and I had a tank in there. And when Everardo came on, he always wanted to do a oner. I don’t know if you noticed that, but the first minute and a half is a oner, so that changed a lot. Then it was like, “Well, how do we do what I wrote in a oner now, with a tank?” A lot of stuff gets cut when you’re doing a oner. I had these crazy rollerblading Purgers there, and they got cut out of the movie. It’s constantly evolving, but we’re constantly having to write it, just for pre-production and production. We were always filtering it through my eyes and Everardo’s. He’s gotta see it, that’s the thing. He’s gotta be able to envision it because he’s the guy on set, putting it on its feet. But once he came up with the idea for a oner, that made it very complicated because we had helicopters and tanks. We were on the Universal lot shooting that, which was a privilege to do. That was a tough sequence. That was the toughest one in the whole movie.

It seems like so many things could have gone wrong, at so many points along the way.

DeMONACO: Yeah, and they did. And the actors had to be very patient because there were so many moving parts. If one person flubbed a line, they had to restart the whole oner. I can’t imagine how they make a movie like Birdman, where you do a tense 10-minute sequence. That must be so tense because, if one person screws up, you’re back to one. That’s gonna to be very hard. You don’t wanna be that guy. I just worked with Naomi Watts and she said no one wanted to be the person who screwed up their line, in minute seven of a 10-minute sequence. So, there were a lot of nerves on set. It was fun.

The Forever Purge is now playing in theaters.