Nia DaCosta's Candyman reboot now delayed until 2021

Nia DaCosta's upcoming horror Candyman has been postponed until next year.

The film, which has been described as a "spiritual sequel” to the 1992 slasher movie, has been delayed numerous times due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, and was set to hit cinemas on 16 October, just in time for Halloween.

However, studio bosses at Universal and MGM announced that it will now be released at some point next year, but have yet to set a new release date, according to Variety.

Directed by DaCosta and co-written by Jordan Peele, the horror movie is based on a ghostly legend and centres on a struggling artist, played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who begins to lose his sanity after discovering the story of Candyman.

As the tale goes, if someone says his name to a mirror five times, Candyman will appear and kill whoever summoned him. The much-anticipated film was set to be one of the year's biggest Halloween releases.

The director explained on Twitter the film was pushed because the production team "wanted the horror and humanity of CANDYMAN to be experienced in a collective".

She continued: "We made CANDYMAN to be seen in theaters. Not just for the spectacle but because the film is about community and stories - how they shape each other, how they shape us. It’s about the collective experience of trauma and joy, suffering and triumph, and the stories we tell around it."