‘Purge’ Creator Says They ‘Want to End It All’ With Next Film

The last Purge may finally be upon us.

In a chat with Entertainment Weekly Tuesday, franchise creator James DeMonaco publicly entertained the idea of closing up shop with the next installment in the franchise, presumably due at some point in 2020.

"I have it in my head," DeMonaco, who also directed the first three Purge films, said. "I think I'm going to write it. I think it's a great way to end it all. We want to end it all, I think, in this one, and I'm very excited. When I came up with the idea and pitched it to everybody, they seemed psyched, and I think it will be a really cool ending, how we take this one home."

The most recent entry, this summer's The First Purge, brought in Gerard McMurray (The Twilight Zone) for directing duties on a prequel story showing how a terrible idea became the law of the land. Though the Election Year follow-up was a box office success, reviews were decidedly mixed.

Back in 2014, DeMonaco let Complex in on how the idea for the first Purge film was born. "I know this is going to sound very disturbing and dark that [my wife] said this—she's a doctor, works with children, and is a sweet woman—but we were driving on the BQE and a drunk driver cut us off and almost killed us; I got into a fistfight with this guy, and he was a maniac, he said. He had no remorse for literally almost killing us."

After the cops left the scene and she got back into the car, DeMonaco recalled, is when his wife made the quip that inadvertently started it all: "Wouldn't it be great if we all had one free one a year?" The prevalence of school shootings in the States and the juxtaposition of the vastly different gun views held by other nations was also a point of inspiration for DeMonaco. "All of that combined into this idea of a holiday where Americans could legally murder people," he said.

It's unclear what effect, if any, the possible end of the Purge film franchise will have on the USA Network series that premiered just last month.