In a snap, Universal was ready to backfill July 2 today with its long-awaited Blumhouse sequel The Forever Purge with the news of Paramount/Skydance’s Top Gun: Maverick leaving the Fourth of July weekend for Nov. 19. The last two Purge movies, 2018’s The First Purge and 2016’s Purge: Election Year played the July 4th corridor.
The Forever Purge moves up from July 9. The movie joins Sony’s Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway as the two Independence Day weekend releases in the wake of Uni’s June 25 launch of F9 and ahead of Disney’s July 9 release of Marvel’s Black Widow (which now has an easy grab at Imax screens after Top Gun 2‘s flight to November).
2018’s The First Purge became the highest-grossing film in the notorious horror series with $137M WW, Blumhouse Productions and Platinum Dunes returns with a terrifying new chapter, written by franchise creator and narrative mastermind James DeMonaco (writer/director of The Purge, The Purge: Anarchy and The Purge: Election Year). The Forever Purge is directed by Everardo Gout, writer-director of the award-winning thriller Days of Grace. The film is produced by the series’ founding producers: Jason Blum for his Blumhouse Productions; Platinum Dunes partners Michael Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller; and Man in a Tree duo James DeMonaco and his longtime producing partner Sébastien K. Lemercier. The film’s executive producers are Marcei A. Brown, Couper Samuelson and Jeanette Volturno.
Through four movies, the Purge franchise counts $456.8M.