Some directors have eccentric trademarks that mark their films as their own. Alfred Hitchcock had his famous cameos while John Landis would slide the phrase “See you next Wednesday” into each of his films in some manner or another. For Sam Raimi, it is an appearance of a 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88. Nicknamed “The Classic,” the car has appeared in just about every one of the director’s films all the way back to the days when he and friends Bruce Campbell and Robert Tappert and his brothers Ted and Ivan would make short films after school with an old Super-8 movie camera.

This past weekend saw the remake of Raimi’s first film The Evil Dead hit theaters and sharp-eyed fans noted the appearance of a familiar yellow Oldsmobile in the film. And that got us to thinking about the car’s appearance in all of Raimi’s films. Let’s take a look.

The Evil Dead (1982)

Raimi’s first film, and one where he and producers Bruce Campbell and Robert Tappert raised all the funding themselves, so they used whatever they had at hand. And that included the use of his dad’s car as the vehicle that transports a group of teens to their fateful rendezvous with a haunted cabin in the woods.

Crimewave (1985)

Raimi’s sophomore effort is mostly overlooked by fans, and while it does have its flaws, there are still a few things that make it worth one’s while. The film does have Raimi’s high energy direction, Campbell shows up as a sleezy criminal named Renaldo and there is a Hudsucker Prison, a name that Crimewave co-scripters Joel and Ethan Coen would recycle for their film The Hudsucker Proxy. And Raimi’s Oldsmobile shows up in the film as the vehicle of choice of two particularly crazed killers.

For the production of the film, Raimi bought two other `73 Oldsmobile Delta 88s to serve as stunt cars. However, when Raimi learned that the original car had been modified to accommodate shooting inside the vehicle at producer Campbell’s orders, he ordered everything put back to the way it was and paid for it out of his own pocket.

Evil Dead 2 (1987)

Part remake/part sequel, the appearance of the Olds in Evil Dead II was pretty much a given. Once again it serves as the means that hero Ash (Campbell) and friends get to the haunted cabin. And it also accompanies Ash through the portal that opens up in the film’s finale.

Darkman (1990)

At one point in Sam Raimi’s melding of The Shadow and The Phantom Of The Opera, tragic hero Peyton Westlake, aka Darkman, is hanging from a cable attached to a helicopter on which the villainous Durant (Larry Drake) is attempting to make an escape. As the helicopter pilot tries to bounce the dangling Darkman off of the oncoming traffic, one car that narrowly misses him is a 73 Oldsmobile. And if you look really closely, the two men in the front of the car are Joel and Ethan Cohen, who had done some uncredited script work on the film.

Army Of Darkness (1993)

Tossed back in time along with Ash, the Classic plays perhaps its biggest part in any of Raimi’s films as it gets converted into a machine of war to take on the army of deadites marching on the medieval castle where Ash has taken the Book of the Dead. This is without a doubt the Oldsmobile Delta 88′s finest on screen moment.

The Quick And The Dead (1995)

The Old West doesn’t sound like much of a place to be able to feature a car that wouldn’t be manufactured for another century or so, but Raimi did manage to sneak the car into the film. Reportedly either a special covered wagon was fashioned and dropped over the car for one scene or it was covered with a tarp in a barn. So far though, no one has been able to exactly identify where it is.

A Simple Plan (1998)

The Classic doesn’t get much of a showcase here in this tale of found money and greed. All you can see of it is parked curbside in the small town where the film is set.

For Love Of The Game (1999)

Raimi’s baseball drama is the one film on the director’s resume that doesn’t feature the Delta 88 onscreen in some form or another. But it is not for lack of trying, as reportedly there was a scene that featured the car but it wound up on the cutting room floor.

The Gift (2000)

In this supernatural thriller, Cate Blanchett, playing a psychic in a small, Southern town who has visions of a murder victim, is the owner of a battered Olds Delta 88, that she uses to get around town.

Spiderman Trilogy (2002, 2004, 2007)

Peter Parker’s Aunt May and Uncle Ben are a kindhearted couple who struggle to make ends meet in order to give their poor orphaned nephew as good as home as they can. And I guess that means not splurging on a new car, but keeping their old Oldsmobile Delta (looking better than has in the last number of films) running as long as they can. It is the car that fatefully takes Ben to his fatal appointment with a carjacker after dropping Peter off in midtown Manhattan in the first film. The car can again be seen in the family driveway in the following two films as well as in the third film’s flashback to the events of the first film’s carjacking.

Drag Me To Hell (2009)

In Sam Raimi’s return to the horror genre after nearly a decade away, Alison Lohman is a young bank loan officer who makes an enemy of a vengeful gypsy, and you can guess what kind of battered old car she drives.

Oz, The Great And Powerful (2013)

You would think that a film set in Kansas in the early years of the 20th century and then a magical faraway land would prove difficult locations for Raimi to try and insert the Olds. I haven’t been able to find the car in the film yet, but this picture I found online purports to be the car’s appearance in the film. I have my doubts though.

1. Evil Dead (TriStar, 3,025 Theaters, 91 Minutes, Rated R): There are certain films that many film buffs think should never ever be remade–Citizen Kane, Star Wars, Casablanca, among others. Many horror fans would have added Evil Dead to that list. But we are in an era where every classic horror film, from Nightmare on Elm Street  to Friday the 13th to Halloween to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, is getting remade whether it needs to or not. So the only question about Evil Dead isn’t that it is being remade but why did it take so long.

The remake does still have Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell attached: both as producers and the latter in a rumored cameo. And director Fede Alvarez is going with conventional special effects in lieu of CGI for the scares. But that might not be enough who loved the original for its DIY ethic and find the remake to slick for their tastes.

FilmBuffOnline head honcho Rich Drees has a two-part interview with director Alvarez. Part one can be read here. Part two will appear on Sunday, and will contain spoilers so see the film before you read it!

2. Jurassic Park 3D (Universal, 2,771 Theaters, 127 Minutes, Rated PG-13): I fear that there will soon come a time where every weekend will look like this one, with every theater showing remakes or reworks of older films. Even sequels and adaptations will make way for teh more reliable re-brothers.

That being said, if there was a film that deserves the 3D treatment, it’s Jurassic Park. The dinosaurs seem to leap out from the screen without and digital fiddling, so they should be especially impressive when viewed through those awkward glasses.

Typically, 3D reissues are also released with a non-3D version. If that is the case here, and your only experience with this film is on TV, you should go see it in a theater. Those Oscar-winning effects are best viewed on the big screen.

In a multi-part series, Comic Book Film Editor William Gatevackes will be tracing the history of comic book movies from the earliest days of the film serials to today’s big blockbusters and beyond. Along with the history lesson, Bill will be covering some of the most prominent comic book films over the years and why they were so special. This time, we’ll talk about the second of three of the best “superhero” film franchises that only appeared in comics after the films were released. 

If Sam Raimi was able to get his hands on The Shadow, we’d probably be talking about something else today. And if he was able to secure the rights to Batman, we’d be talking about his early forays into  superhero filmmaking a whole lot sooner.

See, rumor has it Raimi tried to get those two properties in the 1990s but wasn’t able to. That’s why he came up with Darkman, a character based on a short story of his that pulled its influences from those two properties mentioned above and other diverse inspirations that ran the gamut from  The Phantom of the Opera to Universal’s monster films.  And while seeing Raimi’s unique style on The Shadow and Batman would rock, it hard to imagine that it would be much better than what we got—one of the best superhero films not to be based on a comic book.

Sam Raimi had only three major films to his credit when he gave us Darkman, his first studio feature, but what films they were—The Evil Dead, The Evil Dead II, and Crimewave. Crimewave, which Raimi co-wrote with the Coen Brothers, could be considered either an underrated gem or a film flawed by studio influence, depending on who you ask. But the Evil Dead series was where Raimi made his name. The plot is fairly simple—a bunch of young people head out to the woods only to run into a bunch of demons—but the execution is superb. The film wasn’t afraid to mix gore with loads of humor, and Raimi’s trademark directing style broke all sorts of boundaries on how a movie could be shot. The films acted as both a sterling example of the horror film and a satiric comment on them at the same time. It’s no wonder the films became cult favorites.

It’s with this behind him that Raimi got the chance to do Darkman at Universal. If he thought he had a problem with studio interference during Crimewave, he was mistaken. His relationship with the studio while making Darkman made his experience with Crimewave seem like a walk in the park.

The studio required twelve drafts from five different screenwriters, including Raimi and his brother, Ivan. The editor the studio provided refused to follow Raimi’s storyboards and eventually left after the production started.  A round of negative test screenings compelled the studio to force Raimi into recutting the film to one that would fare better.

All and all, it would be safe to say that the film that arrived in theaters was not exactly the one that Raimi set out to make. Regardless of that fact, it was a great film, and a good example on how to bring a superhero character to the screen.

Darkman is Dr. Peyton Westlake, a scientist working on a synthetic skin to help burn victims. He’s made some results, but the skin he’s developed is photosensitive and breaks down after an hour and a half in sunlight. While he is working on his fake skin, gangsters break in to the laboratory looking for a document Westlake’s girlfriend hid there. After finding the document, the gangsters rig the lab to explode and leave Westlake to die.  However, Westlake survives and is left hideously scarred. Doctors cut access to his nerve receptors to save him from a life of pain, but that process causes his adrenaline production to go unchecked, giving him superhuman strength and stamina. He decides to use his false skin technology and his heightened abilities to go after the gangsters that tried to kill him.

Raimi is helped quite a bit by having Liam Neeson, future Oscar nominee, to play Westlake and prior Oscar nominee/future Oscar winner Frances McDormand playing his girlfriend, Julie. And the film lives up to the responsibility of having two Oscar-caliber actors in the leads. It is deeper than you’d expect from the subject matter. The film examines how even righteous vengeance can be corrupting to the soul, and how once you cross certain lines, it is impossible to go back to the way things were.   All of this wrapped up in a package that includes Raimi’s unique visual style and in-your-face humor and shocks.

When I saw Darkman in the theaters, I thought that it was as close as you could get to the perfect Batman film. If you swapped out the characters, changed the plot a bit, the psychological examination the film puts its lead character through would fit for Bruce Wayne just as well as it would for Peyton Westlake. But Raimi would go onto another superhero first, a certain web-headed hero we’ll be talking about a little later.

Darkman has two, direct-to-video sequels. The first was Darkman II: The Return of Durant:

Arnold Vosloo stepped in for Neeson in the title role and Raimi took on a producer’s role in the series. This sequel apparently did well enough that it garnered a second sequel, Darkman III: Die, Darkman, Die, also starring Vosloo in the title role:

Plans were made to bring Darkman to the small screen (a pilot was filmed but never aired) and to the Broadway stage (although there have been off-Broadway plays based on the film), but to date, none have panned out. The character did make his way into comic books, two miniseries from Marvel that were published around the time the film came out and one from Dynamite Entertainment in 2006 that paired up Darkman with another Sam Raimi creation, Ash from the Evil Dead films, in a book called Darkman versus the Army of Darkness.

Next time, we’ll cover a franchise that had the makings to be one of the best comic book-esque film series to hit the cineplex before it flew off the rails with its second installment.

When it was announced last week that Sam Raimi may or may not be working on a screenplay for a fourth installment of his Evil Dead horror films, I wondered how he was planning on differentiating this continuation of the franchise from the soon-to-be released remake of the series’ classic first installment. Evil Dead, both new and classic, producer Robert Tappert has supplied us with the answer (via Coming Soon) -

That would be Army of Darkness 2. Everybody calls it Evil Dead 4 but Army of Darkness wasn’t called Evil Dead anywhere except by the fans.

So I guess that answers that question.

Of course, there won’t be any movie, no matter what we call it, if original Evil Dead franchise star Bruce Campbell isn’t that enthused about coming back to his iconic role one more time. And considering that it has been 21 years since he last brandished his boomstick against the armies of the undead, Campbell does express some skepticism that a new film will ever come to pass.

Sam threatens this every six months. I’ve heard this a thousand times, because in the back of his mind, he never wants to let go, because he loved making these movies. We all loved making them together. They were a nightmare to make, very difficult, but they lasted the test of time, so he’s not going to let that go, and I’m never going to say ‘no.’ It’ll be me and a walker fighting some other old guy. But that’s what he does and who knows? It may happen.

But remember how awesome Campbell was in Don Coscarelli’s Bubba Ho-Tep as an aging Elvis fighting a mummy in a nursing home? I’m thinking that Ash would have nothing on him.

But there is one problem Raimi and his brother Ivan will have to overcome when they sit down to start writing. Which Army Of Darkness ending do they use? As fans of the series can tell you, and I am about to, the US and international releases of the film had two different endings – one in which the time-tossed Ash makes it back to home in the twentieth century in time for his shift at the S-Mart and one in which he doesn’t. It should be interesting to see which path the brothers take.

Sam Raimi’s Oz, The Great And Powerful is well on its way to make somewhere in the amount of $70 to $75 million dollars this weekend, and so Disney is already starting to gear up for a sequel to their Wizard Of Oz prequel. The studio has already asked original Oz screenwriter Mitchell Kapner to begin developing a script featuring the further adventures of Kansas circus magician Oscar Diggs in the magical land of Oz set before another Kansas resident’s notable trip there.

But director Raimi won’t be one of those making the return trip. In an interview with Bleeding Cool, Raimi stated that he was quiet happy with turning the reins of a follow up film over to another director. (Warning, spoilers ahead.)

I haven’t planned on directing the sequel. I did leave some loose ends for another director if they want to make the picture. I tried to make it a complete ending, so that the audience would be fulfilled, but I also let Evenora and Theodora get away.

I was attracted to this story but I don’t think the second one would have the thing I would need to get me interested.

Now it does seem that Raimi is leaving himself an out clause there at the end in case Kapner manages to come up with a story that piques his interest. So maybe he’ll change his mind if he has a meeting with Kapner or likes what he reads once a first draft is turned in. But until then transpires, I think we can count him out for now.

Although it is just opening today, Disney has enough confidence in the box office prospects of Oz, The Great And Powerful that they have commissioned its screenwriter Mitchell Kapner to begin developing a sequel to the Wizard Of Oz prequel. Kapner’s original screenplay made the 2010 Black List of hot unproduced screenplays.

Currently the Sam Raimi-directed film is tracking to open to an approximately $80 million weekend at the box office.

As I noted in my review, the film ends with several characters in place for where readers will meet them in L. Frank Baum’s first volume of his classic Oz series of books. But since they are in the public domain, Kapner is free to cherrypick them for ideas and characters to use. This theoretically gives him more room to develop a story than he had with the first film. There’s certainly room for plenty of adventures before Dorothy’s arrival as in the film’s opening Kansas-set section, the future Wizard Oscar Diggs (James Franco), has his heart broken by a woman who is hinted at being the future mother of Dorothy.

Via Variety.

In a multi-part series, Comic Book Film Editor William Gatevackes will be tracing the history of comic book movies from the earliest days of the film serials to today’s big blockbusters and beyond. Along with the history lesson, Bill will be covering some of the most prominent comic book films over the years and why they were so special. This time, we’ll talk about the first three of the best “superhero” films that only appeared in comics after the films were released. 

Fair warning, you might have issue with these three film franchises being covered in the next three installments being called “superhero” movies. I’m here to make the case they are. But even if you don’t buy my argument, you have to admit the connection between these films and the world of comics is a tangible one.

These franchises have a lot in common. Each received life in comics after its first film opened, and the world of comics played a part in their creation to some extent. Each franchise was started by directors whose talent made them the biggest names in the film world. And each franchise was a case of diminishing returns after the big splash made by the first installment.

Some might ask, “Why is RoboCop on the list and the other famous Orion release of the ’80s, The Terminator, not? Couldn’t that film be considered an unofficial comic book film?” Yes, it could. But the ties between RoboCop and comics are a little bit stronger.

Director Paul Verhoeven has admitted in a 2002 interview with Dutch website XI Online that RoboCop, Verhoeven’s first major American film, was inspired by British comic book character, Judge Dredd, and you can see it, too. RoboCop takes place in a similar dystopian near-future as Dredd, is offered as the last word in law enforcement like Dredd, and often acts as judge, jury and executioner, too, like Dredd. But I don’t think the comic book inspirations end there.

In 1974, Marvel Comics came up with a character called Deathlok. He was a soldier named Luther Manning from a dystopian future version of Detroit, Michigan who is fatally injured in battle. Before he dies, his body is retrieved and what can be saved is rebuilt into a cyborg by an evil corporation with the intent of using the man-machine to work towards their interests. He eventually gains independence and fights against his programming. RoboCop is Alex Murphy, a police officer in a dystopian future version of Detroit, Michigan who is fatally injured in the line of duty. Before he dies, his body is retrieved and what can be saved is rebuilt into a cyborg by an evil corporation with the intent of using the man-machine to work towards their interests. He eventually gains independence and fights against his programming.

Now, this could be a big coincidence, but if the powers that be were inspired by a comic with limited exposure in the U.S. at the time, they could have very well been familiar with the rather obscure Deathlok. Nothing has been said officially if Deathlok inspired RoboCop, so this is all speculation. But it is worth thinking about.

Regardless of the inspiration, RoboCop was an awesome film, well ahead of its time. On one level, it works as a great futuristic sci-fi action film. On another level, it is a cutting piece of satire of the era that still rings true today. Some of the jabs are obvious—television, commercials and the need for consumer products, others are more subtle—the jingoism of Regan’s America, the corporatization of public services, and violence in film (satire which was lost on the MPAA, who made director Verhoeven tone down the violence in order to avoid an X Rating, and many audience members).

The film was well received critically and financially, which means sequels. But director Verhoeven and writers Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner would not be returning for RoboCop 2.

But this did not seem like much of a problem. To replace Verhoeven, the powers that be chose Irvin Kershner. It might be a stylistic step down, but Kershner did direct The Empire Strikes Back, the much lauded second installment in the Star Wars franchise. For writing, they turned to the world of comics. They looked towards a name that was getting a lot of attention for a series that covered a lot of the same themes as RoboCop. The book was The Dark Knight Returns and the writer was Frank Miller.

On paper, this seemed like a project that while not being as good as the original, it would be good in its own right. However, on film, 1990’s RoboCop 2 was a resounding disappointment.

Judging by how bad his writing would eventually become, it would be easy to blame Frank Miller for how bad these sequels turned out. However, Miller has stated that the producers rewrote his script to an absurd level and what was on the screen only had traces of what he originally wrote.  His original script was adapted into comic book form in 2003 by Avatar Press.  It proved that he was right. Oh, Miller’s version was bad, just bad in a different way, but practically the only thing that remained the same in both versions was the introduction of a new cyborg officer (named…RoboCop 2! Hilarity!) and an even more war-torn Detroit.

Where Miller’s version and the version that made it to the screen went wrong was that both failed to grasp what made the original so great. Instead of uberviolence that pointed out the absurdity of movie violence, it was the type of gratuitous violence the first film mocked. Instead of biting satire, it was ham-fisted mockery of easy pop culture targets. Instead of shocking us with the depravity that humans can stoop to, it gives us a twelve-year-old drug lord and expects us to be shocked.

Miller did get something out of it. He was able to visit the set everyday to learn the art of filmmaking. He also garnered the first of what would be a string of cameos in feature films.

While the film was a critical failure, it made enough money to garner another sequel. Miller was brought back to write RoboCop 3, and he accepted the job thinking this time would be different and he would finally be able to reintroduce plot points that were removed from his script for RoboCop 2. He was wrong. While some elements Miller wanted made their way in—the forcible relocation of Old Detroit residents, the use of mercenaries to supplement the Detroit police force—his script was changed even more this time around, due to the way the character morphed through in his appearances in other media.

After the success of the first RoboCop, the franchise branched out into other medium. It became a Marvel comic book which presented a more kid friendly version of the character and ran from 1990-1993. Marvel, through its Marvel Productions arm, also produced a syndicated cartoon in 1988 which, while darker than the other cartoon fare of the time, was considerably less violent and gory than the film. The property also made its way into the world of video games, again with much of its content toned down.

The result was that the RoboCop brand became, well, more kid friendly. The producers of the film franchise recognized this and decided to make RoboCop 3 a more kid-accessible PG-13.

Peter Weller, who was excellent in the role of RoboCop, is gone for this installment, replaced by Robert John Burke. Nancy Allen stayed for a few scenes before getting herself killed off. The violence was toned down and kid-friendly plot elements such as a jet pack for RoboCop and robo-ninjas as his enemies put the final nail in removing all traces of what made the first film great.

There has been a remake in the works since 2005. Director Darren Aronofsky was briefly attached to the project before Jose Padilha was chosen to take over the reins. This should be coming out later in the year that this post will run, so I’ll just have to add to it as time goes by.

Next up, Sam Raimi examines the superhero archetype years before he directed Spider-Man.

The problem with prequels is that they are locked into their endings. Directors may have lots of fun playing with the various toys in the toybox, but they have to make sure that they are all packed away in their proper place and with nothing broken when done. The best that they can do is make sure the journey the film’s characters take is at least exciting and distracting enough so we don’t notice that everything is lacking in overall suspense as to how it will all end.

And such is the problem director Sam Raimi finds himself with with the film Oz, The Great And Powerful. As a prequel to L. Frank Baum’s classic children’s book The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz, and to a lesser and non-legal extenant MGM’s 1939 musical adaptation of the same, we know that by the end Kansas circus magician Oscar Diggs (James Franco) will be ensconced in the Emerald City as the ruler of the Land of Oz after having incurred the wrath of an evil witch or two. And while Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire’s screenplay does managed to supply some nice character moments and some fun set pieces, it never really brings one to the edge of one’s seat.

Oscar Diggs, Oz to his friends, aspires to greatness but has doubts that he could ever achieve it. But when his twister-tossed hot air balloon sends him to the land OZ where he is greeted by the witches Theodora (Mila Kunis) and Evanora (Rachel Weisz) as the foretold future king of the realm, he sees his prospects changing. All he has to do, he is told by Theodora and Evanora, is kill the evil witch who poisoned the previous ruler of the land – Glinda (Michelle Williams).

If you’re familiar at all with the original Wizard Of Oz story than you know that someone is lying about Glinda being a killer and to its credit that movie doesn’t draw out for too long the not-so-mysterious mystery as to whom the real culprit is. What’s more interesting about the film’s screenplay is the repercussions of Oz’s flirtatious nature with one of the sisters and how the other uses it to her advantage. It is an almost Shakespearean turn of events, only undercut by the fact that the actress doesn’t really play it all that well. (I’m not saying whom it is in order to preserve the mystery as to which sister it is.)

If you’re familiar with Raimi’s work in the Evil Dead horror films or even the Spider-Man trilogy and are wondering about how he came to direct a family film for Disney, don’t fret. He still manages to work in a number of his trademarks including some dutch camera angles and frenetic action sequences. Of course, his best friend, cult actor Bruce Campbell, gets a cameo late in the film that is well worth the wait. And if you look a little harder at the story, you’ll realize that in broad strokes it bears a striking similarity to his own film Army Of Darkness. The third installment of the Evil Dead franchise finds its hero thrown back in time where he is greeted as a prophesied savior who will defeat an evil magic and manages to do so with knowledge of technology that the native population does not have. (OK, these are both variations of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, but the comparison still stands.)

Since this is a Disney production, legalities insist that Raimi and company don’t copy things that are intrinsically unique to the classic 1939 MGM The Wizard Of oz. But boy do they dance right on the line of what they can and can not get away with doing. Many of the character and set designs look similar to their 1939 counterparts, though I suppose an argument could be made that they are both based on the initial descriptions provided by Baum in the books. The film even manages a meta-textual joke about their limitations in duplicating elements from the MGM film in the scene where Oz first meets the munchinkins.

Even right at the start of things, the film apes the 1939 film’s black and white to color transition that marked Dorothy’s leaving of the mundane world of Kansas and arriving somewhere over the rainbow. But Raimi does things one better by shooting his Kansas sequence in Academy ratio that opens up to wide screen as the color seeps in upon Oz’s arrival in the magical land that bears his name. (Surprisingly, though, this would have been a great moment for the film to transition from 2D to 3D, but the opportunity is allowed to slide past.)

And speaking of the 3D, Raimi manages to take the process and make it feel not so much as something he was forced to use in order to jack up the prices at the ticket booth but make it fun at times. And given that we know that all four main characters will have to survive in order to meet their respective fates in The Wizard Of Oz (bucket of water, farmhouse to the top of the head, etc.), that’s about all we can ask for.

MGM has finally found a director for their long in development Poltergeist remake. Taking the helm of the film about a suburban family who disciver their home is infested with not so friendly ghosts will be Gil Kenan. And interesting choice as Kenan’s 2006 animated feature Monster House explored simliar stpry territory, albeit with a more kid-friendly tone.

Sam Raimi has been attached to the film as a producer for a while and some were starting to suspect that the director would wind up taking the reins of the film himself.

This Poltergeist remake has been in the pipeline for so long that a number of writers have taken a pass at the screenplay including David Lindsay-Abaire (Oz, The Great And Powerful), Scott Derrickson (Sinister), Juliet Snowden (The Possession), Stiles White (Boogeyman) and Paul Harris Boardman (The Exorcism of Emily Rose). The Writers Guild arbitration should be interesting.

The original Tobe Hooper 1982 horror classic starred Craig T. Nelson and Jobeth Williams.

Over the weekend came news that director Sam Raimi would be getting to work on a screenplay for Evil Dead 4, despite the fact that a reboot of the franchise was on its way to theaters next month. Unfortunately, it turns out that might not be his intention after all.

Speaking with Bleeding Cool, Raimi explains that he may have been a bit hasty with his words -

Those guys made me say that. I am thinking about it but a crowd goes “Come on Sam, do it!” so I said “Okay, I guess I was talking to my brother about it.” But I feel like I was pushed into saying that, a little bit. In the hallway today I joked with Ivan [his brother] “Get working on that script!” but I really don’t know.

I’m afraid that every time I talk about it people get really mad at me when I don’t follow through with it. I would like to work on the script over the summer, that much is true. But the reason to come back and do it again is only that they’re making me, those fans.

I was saying to Ivan “Why do they stay on this thing? Why do they keep at it?” and he said “They want to make a movie. You’re a filmmaker and your fans are asking you to make the movie. What are you, an idiot? Make the movie!” I guess there’s something I don’t see. It makes sense when Ivan says it… but I didn’t have a tremendous amount of passion until right now to bring to it.
I love working with Bruce Campbell and Rob Tapert, I have so much fun making those movies, so… but the fans are really forcing me into it.

But surprising enough is Raimi’s response to a follow up question as to what other projects he may have lined up to do -

No, I don’t really have something else.

So will Raimi and his brother Ivan develop something for an Evil Dead 4 that will fire up his enthusiasm? Here’s hoping.