If the news that director Sam Raimi is developing a fourth installment in his Evil Dead horror/comedy series isn’t enough to excite you, how about the idea that the stage version of the franchise, Evil Dead: The Musical, may be heading to the big screen as well? And in move to replicate the stage show’s infamous “Splatter Zone,” the film may be coming at you in 3D!
What else can I say, but “Groovy!”
Producer Don Carmody, who co-produced the six-time Oscar winner musical-to-film adaptation Chicago, is currently in negotiations to with Raimi to bring the show to the big screen with the production’s original director Christopher Bond and choreographer Hinton Battle as co-directors.
Evil Dead: The Musical premiered in Toronto in 2004 at the Just For Laughs festival and had a five month run off-Broadway. The show has been successfully remounted in Toronto as well as has gone up in various other cities around the world, including Korea. Replicating the movies’ famous excessive use of fake blood, the show splashes gallons of the fake red stuff around the stage and into the first few rows of the audience, aka “The Splatter Zone.”
As a fan of the Evil Dead films, I managed to see the musical twice during its New York run – opening night of previews and the night before it closed – sitting in the Splatter Zone both times. The show is a blast and if it had run longer, I would have gone again. According to reports, Carmody states that he is looking to use much of the show’s original cast as possible, although it doesn’t state if that would be the Toronto or off-Broadway cast. Either way, that would still put Ryan Ward in the role of Ash, which is a very good thing. Hopefully they’ll bring back Jenna Coker from the New York cast as Ash’s sister Cheryl.
Via Screen Daily.
