Screen Rant » evil dead

Comic-Con ‘08: Day 4 Wrap Up

Vic Holtreman — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 09:27:57 +0000

Doug Nagy from TheMovieBlog.com, Alex Billington from Firstshowing.net and me with the three stars of Bitch Slap at the Wrath of Con party

Another day at Comic-Con, another sore rear end from the uncomfortable seats in Hall H…

Today’s events included watching the Season 3 premiere episode of Heroes, which was a huge unexpected bonus. It looks like the show is getting its mojo back and if you’re a fan you’re really going to like it when it returns this Fall.

The Lost panel was attended by the executive producers (who revealed next to nothing) and Matthew Fox (who said almost nothing). They did manage to entertain the crowd, but overall it was cotton candy: a lot of fluff but not very nourishing.

One of the big surprises was how awesome the new Terminator Salvation trailer turned out to be. It was really very impressive and I think it’s going to be right up there with the first two in terms of quality and being a fan favorite when all is said and done.

Another pleasant surprise was Disney showing 20 minutes from their upcoming animated CGI film Bolt. I wouldn’t call it awesome, but I have to say it made me laugh quite a few times and was very cute. It’s certainly not Pixar-great but I think it’s going to be a very good family flick.

After that Pixar director Pete Docter gave a similar presentation for next year’s movie Up, that was given last year for Wall-E. There were a few character renderings and explanations of who they were and there were a couple of extended clips that were right up there with the usual level of story-telling quality. It looks like they’re getting back to issues of the heart instead of continuing down the “message-y” path of Wall-E.

I was going to sit through Universal’s panel and write it up, but I couldn’t bear to watch or hear any more about the awful looking Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. There was a scene where Abominable Snowmen (aks Yetis) were brought in to fight and they had such human mannerisms that it was just plain retarded. Don’t believe me? How about one Yeti kicking a bad guy hard enough to send him flying a very long way and another yet sticking his arms in the air and doing the football touchdown sign?

Sam Raimi and the principals from Drag Me to Hell were at the Universal panel and a clip was shown. While it’s a horror movie, it looks like it has the flavor of the Evil Dead films because it was also very funny in Raimi’s horror movie kind of way. If you’re a fan of those movies, this one looks fantastic and brings Raimi back to his roots. He also said he’s very interested in doing another Evil Dead film.

The unrated trailer for Quarantine, the American version of the Spanish horror film [Rec] actually looks pretty damned good.

Although the Wrath of Con party was great, we didn’t get to meet any real celebs since part of it was roped off as a VIP setion. Oh well… got to hang with my move site buds and the babes from Bitch Slap, a grindhouse type movie due to come out later this year.

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Sam ‘Spider-Man’ Raimi Has Some Serious Job Security

Vic Holtreman — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 16:18:09 +0000

Sam Raimi doesn’t have to work on anything at all if he doesn’t want to, but his options are wide open. Following the success of his Spider-Man films the red carpet now belongs to him. He’s kicking back and pondering quite a few projects right now, including the possibility of Spider-Man 4. From the sound of it, he (and Marvel and the studio) realize that they need to do something very different with the next Spider-Man film considering the reaction of moviegoers to the weirdness that was Spider-Man 3.

Regarding Spidey, Raimi stated:

“Right now, Sony is meeting with different writers to try and bring a fresh, new story and approach to the ‘Spider-Man’ franchise, different writers have been coming in and spinning different tales of where ‘Spider-Man’ could go from here… A lot of people are working very hard to work on a really good story right now.”

He’s not contractually obligated to direct, but if the right story and circumstances arise he’s open to it.

Regarding other movie projects, Raimi said that he’s still open to the idea of having someone come in and do a remake of the cult classic Evil Dead. The original was done on a shoestring budget and shot on 16MM and he says he’d love to see “a young filmmaker to reimagine and remake it at some point.” But before you get all excited (or angry) about it, at this point it’s all just talk.

And in case you’ve forgotten, Raimi is also the guy behind the American Grudge remakes of the original Japanese horror films. There’s a Grudge 3 in the script stage at the moment and they’re trying to get it done before the possible strike next year.

What else? How about a remake of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? This is the first I’ve heard about this project and he’s producing the film. Regarding a movie based on The Hobbit, Raimi says he’d love to do it but thinks that Peter Jackson (who directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy) should be the man.

Finally, in an interesting counterpoint to the fact that he laments that Evil Dead was made for such a low budget, he has a film in mind that seems to be a throwback to that one called Drag Me to Hell. It’s barely into pre-production and all he says about it story-wise is “It’s the story of a curse. Real bad things happen.” It will be directed by Jeff Lynch, who did the second unit work on the Spider-Man movies.

Sam just finished up producing the upcoming vampire flick 30 Days of Night which opens this Friday.

The man is not hurting for work.

Sources: Sci Fi Wire and MTV Movies

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Evil Dead IV: Don’t Hold Your Breath

Vic Holtreman — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 15:55:18 +0000

If you are a fan of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead movies, you’d better satisfy yourself with the multiple DVD versions of the original two movies because Evil Dead IV isn’t coming any time soon.

Over at IESB there’s a video interview with Bruce Campbell in which he stated that Sam Raimi is extremely busy with the Spiderman franchise and who knows when he’d have the time or inclination to do Evil Dead IV.

And in case you think he was just being coy for the interview, I have independent verification of this from a source who spoke with Tom Sullivan. Tom did special effects work on Evil Dead I, II and Army of Darkness and is a friend of Bruce.

Bruce did say during the interview that he and Sam Raimi will be producing the upcoming remake of Evil Dead, but will leave the details to the director since the point is to see a different take on the original material. He joked about having Ashton Kutcher direct and star in the remake, and that if Kutcher wasn’t available they’d try to get Ben Affleck, since Ben Stiller or Owen Wilson had already declined.

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Evil Dead: A remake done right?

Vic Holtreman — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 02:23:53 +0000

In an interview with SciFi.com, Rober Tapert discussed the upcoming remake of the cult classic Evil Dead. It seems that he and Bruce Campbell were quite reluctant to go forward with the remake concept, both being very sensitive to the fans of the original film(s). Sam Raimi however (who directed the original version) has been wanting to move forward with the project in order to get a fresh take on it by some new director.

The good news is that Tapert and Raimi are producing the new version and they are both good friends with Campbell, who is very connected to the fan base and cares greatly about the original, which launched his career. At this point I don’t know if he will have any official involvement, but I find it hard to believe that he wouldn’t have a hand in the proceedings.

If you must have a remake, I suppose this is the way to go about it.

Source: Sci Fi Wire

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Evil Dead 4 coming after all?

Vic Holtreman — Sun, 05 Dec 2004 16:40:20 +0000

According to Moviehole.com Sam Raimi wants to turn his attention to a sequel of Army of Darkness. One can only assume that Bruce Campbell would have to be in it (fans of the Evil Dead series, rejoice!).

Many thought that any shot at a fourth “Dead” movie was, well, dead following the recent announcement that a remake of the original Evil Dead movie had been approved by Raimi. The remake will not be directed by Raimi and will not star Campbell. Fans of the original movies were not happy and questioned the point of a remake.

It will certainly be a while, and thinks could change since Raimi is interested in doing this after Spiderman 3, but we can keep our fingers crossed, baby.

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