Some days, I think the only way to stop rumors of an Evil Dead remake is for them to actually make the damn thing, otherwise it will be a question that our children and grandchildren will be wrestling with. Sure, director Sam Raimi has occasionally talked about either remaking the film that launched both his and cult favorite actor Bruce Campbell’s careers or just going ahead and making a fourth installment of the franchise, but that’s all it has been – talk.
There may be more to a possible remake than just talk, though, as Raimi’s long-time producer Robert Tappert has just teased in an interview (via Shock Til You Drop) that the pair are still mulling over the prospect.
[An Evil Dead reboot is] possible; we’re looking at a script this month… What’s interesting about Evil Dead is very few people saw it in the format we made it for, which is for the theater. … I think Sam wants to embrace the ultimate experience in grueling terror and see it remade for a proper theatrical experience.
But can a remake of Evil Dead really recreate the same lightening-in-a-bottle that Raimi and Campbell captured all those years ago? Very probably not. I still think that the better course for them would be to do a full on big-screen adaptation of the off-Broadway Evil Dead: The Musical.
In the past few years Raimi has been devoting his time to a fourth Spider-Man film, before being forced out of the franchise he launched by Sony execs. He’s gone back to his roots in a way with the low budget horror film Drag Me To Hell and has been developing a couple of other projects including Oz, The Great And Powerful and a science-fiction take on the legend of Wyatt Earp. Even if the script they’re about to look at is any good, Raimi might not be available to go right into production on this.
