Maya Hawke's New R-Rated Dystopian Movie Was Originally Connected To $533M Horror Franchise
Just don’t call it "Sex Purge."
Set for wide theatrical release August 7, the rom-com One Night Only imagines a dystopian future where sex outside marriage has been outlawed, except on a single night per year when singles are allowed to hook up provided they use protection. This premise has indeed sparked comparisons to the hugely successful Purge franchise and its plot gimmick of violent crime being allowed once a year for a 12-hour period, but One Night Only’s director insists his movie has nothing to do with Universal's horror juggernaut.
In an interview with ScreenRant's Liam Crowley, Will Gluck addressed the direct Purge connection that he admits was originally written into his script, explaining why he later decided to remove the reference. “It was the draft I wrote. It wasn't the original; it was the draft I wrote. And I did have a reference, and I quickly excised it because I was worried people like you would use it for marketing. So I cut it, and we buried it. We dug a hole, and we're never going to speak about it again because I bet you call it the Sex Purge.”
The subject of One Night Only and its Purge parallels only came up because of the movie’s stars Callum Turner and Monica Barbaro, who in a separate ScreenRant interview, spoke of seeing the reference Gluck admitted to removing, and how it might have helped pitch them on the movie. As Turner recalled, “At the top of the script, the first script I read, it was like the first page before we went into the script was, it talks about The Purge and then it was like, ‘But this is for love.’”
Barbaro agreed that One Night Only’s producers at first were anything but coy about their story’s similarities to the Purge franchise, which has grossed $553 million worldwide. “It wasn't shy of that. That's how it was pitched to me initially,” the Top Gun: Maverick star said. Turner quickly interjected that, though “Sex Purge” might be a good concise hook, the movie is more than that. “It's easy for you to understand, but then obviously it's a lot deeper and a lot more nuanced than just a sex purge,” he said.
This somewhat reductive pitch was indeed effective, Barbaro then admitted, saying, “It made me laugh and then go like, ‘Okay, I'm listening.’” But Turner again jumped in to provide nuance, saying, “It's about two people who are wanting and yearning and looking for something deeper and managed to find each other on the craziest night in history.”
One Night Only director Gluck would no doubt agree that the movie, which is set to gross up to $10 million in its first weekend according to industry tracking, is more than just "The Purge but it’s sex," and indeed, when pressed on whether he pondered any canonical connection between his movie and that certain violent horror franchise, he offered a blunt response. “No. And I'll tell you a secret. I've never seen The Purge.”