Back in December, Michael K. Williams told me that his character, Carmelo Johns, and Frank Grillo’s character will both be back for The Purge 3 and that they will “collide and come together and go after the real bad guys.” We still don’t have any official plot details for the new installment, but it does seem like that’s really where things are heading.
Just last week we found out that Grillo is in final negotiations to reprise his role. While he was at TCA promoting DirecTV's Kingdom, Christina caught up with him to confirm that that’s the case. Here’s what Grillo told her:
“Yeah, in September. I literally have three days off, and then I’m going to go do that for six weeks. I’m moving my family here from New York ‘cause I never see them. I think they get here on the 20th of August, so we’ll have about three weeks together, and then I go to Rhode Island for six or seven weeks, back to the east coast where they just came from. It’s going to be interesting.”
Grillo also had only the best to say about the new screenplay. Here’s what he said when asked why he decided to stick with the franchise:
“The script is genius! I love these movies. I wasn’t a big fan of the first one, but when [James] DeMonaco sent me the second script and asked me if I wanted to do it, I said, ‘Yes, I love this movie!’”
When Christina brought up the fact that The Purge: Anarchy was much more of a crowdpleaser than the original movie, Grillo commented on that and then rolled into some story information for The Purge 3:
“Well, they had money for the second one, so they could do it. And the third one is better than that. It’s political. It’s really great. I’m excited to go do it.”
He also teased new details we’ll learn about his character and what his goals are this time around:
“You get to see where he came from, his origin, how this has affected him, and what he does to make some changes about it. He was involved in law enforcement at a high level, and he gets involved with somebody else who’s also politically charged, and they go after the system. It’s really interesting. It’s like a really good old school B-movie, like Death Wish, or one of those Clint Eastwood westerns. It’s that kind of thing.”
Before wrapping up, Christina pointed out that these films make interesting statements about our society. Grillo agreed:
“Absolutely! And how we treat classes. We say we’re a classless society in America, but it’s amazing how we treat the poor. I’m looking forward to it.”
Again, we don’t have an official plot synopsis yet, but considering Grillo just confirmed that his character gets involved with someone who’s “politically charged” and they go after the system together, it seems likely that he really is teaming up with Carmelo to go after The New Founding Fathers of America. With The Purge 3 heading towards a July 1, 2016 release, hopefully we'll have additional story and casting details for you soon.
