Syfy hasn’t given up too many details of its proposed Purge TV series just yet, but with a fourth film gearing up in Staten Island, director James DeMonaco is opening up. Meet the cast of our new Purge TV series, and find out when in the series’ timeline the anthology takes place.

DeMonaco spoke to Vulture of the new Purge series, which is said to air on both USA and Syfy, and follow how the annual bloodbath impacts life and law enforcement during the rest of the year. The new series will fit into a particular point in the franchise’s history, and feature a black female lead:

In the TV show, I think we’re slowing it down, and we’re using this flashback structure to enter into the non-Purge lives of these people. We’re going back six months or two years or into their childhood to see some things that might’ve fed into their decision-making on this particular Purge. The long form is actually allowing it to become more of a character study, which is kind of cool, instead of a singular event of surviving the night. We have a black female lead. We have a young Puerto Rican brother and sister. We have an Asian character. It’s opening [the story] up, in a way. Ten hours is allowing us to get deeper into character, and deeper into why people would actually consider violence as an option. We’ll see it next year. […]

Yes, it [ties into a shared universe]. We have a couple of cameos going. The TV show takes place between the first Purge and the last movie. We’re kind of right in the middle of all the Purge timelines, so it’s before Charlie Roan. It’s way after the New Founding Fathers of America have come into power. But in the next Purge movie, Purge Four, the NFFA has just come into power and come up with this crazy conceit of the Purge to help a dying economy. So if 20 Purges have taken place, or 15, we’re probably on the seventh or eighth in the TV show. It’s an established thing that people have gotten used to. I think people will be happy when they see that characters go in and out. Minor characters from the movie do little pop ins, and hopefully we can keep expanding on it.

We don’t yet know exactly when a Purge TV series might hit the airwaves, but does DeMonaco have the right idea for serializing the concept? Stay tuned for the latest details.

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