Sci-Fi Film and Television Developments

Evil Dead

1/5/12 - Lily Collins is in early talks to topline the remake of 1981's Evil Dead, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Fede Alvarez, the South American director behind the hot short Panic Attack, is helming the movie, which is being produced by Sam Raimi, who directed the original three movies. Sony Pictures is distributing, aiming for an April 2013 release.  The Evil Dead remake aims to take the property back to its serious and bloody horror roots, bypassing the comedic elements that became more prevalent as the sequels went along.  The story is a "cabin in the woods" horror movie in which five twenty-something friends holed up in a remote cabin discover a book of the dead. They find an archaeologist's taped translation of the text and its incantations, replay them, and unwittingly summon dormant demons that possess them.  Ghost House partners Joe Drake and Nathan Kahane are executive producing Dead.

11/30/11 - Sony Pictures will distribute the remake of Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead, which Fede Alvarez will direct in 2012, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions and FilmDistrict negotiated the deal with Ghost House Pictures, which is producing the reboot. Rob Tapert, Bruce Campbell and Raimi are producing. Ghost House partners Joe Drake and Nathan Kahane are executive producers.  The new Evil Dead follows what happens when five friends in a remote cabin discover a Book of the Dead and unleash a demonic force. Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues and Diablo Cody wrote the screenplay.  Nicole Brown and J.R. Young are overseeing the remake for Ghost House. Lia Buman will oversee the project for FilmDistrict.

10/15/08 – SCI FI Wire reported that Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead may eventually return in some way, shape or form, but the project's been a total pain in the Ash for years, producer Rob Tapert said.  Tapert--who produced director Raimi's seminal horror film and its sequels, Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness--said that the possibilities include a musical, another sequel or a remake.  "There's a guy [producer Don Carmody] who wants to make a musical out of it, a 3-D musical based on the one [Evil Dead: The Musical] that ran off-Broadway," Tapert said in an interview. "And I still think that that's the one I'd like to see greatly. Sam promises he's going to do Evil Dead IV, with Bruce Campbell starring in it [as Ash], at some point in time. I just hope Bruce is still alive."  As for the remake? "Sam and I have kicked that idea around, with Sam really being the person [pushing for it] over Bruce's objections and kind of my going, 'Why?'" Tapert said. "It was a movie that nobody saw theatrically, and it was meant to be a theatrical experience. If we could get some young filmmaker to go and say, 'I can make this far better than Sam did,' we should let him go and try. Sam is the one who keeps saying, 'We should do that,' and I'm the one too busy and somewhat too reluctant and lazy to really fully enable Sam to get it done."

06/06/08 – Sam Raimi offered a brief update on the Evil Dead project. "We never actually pursued it," Raimi said of his Ghost House Pictures partners. "We said we were going to do it, and then we got so busy with other projects we never actually pursued it. So we still want to do it. We still think it's worth trying, and ... I've not done a single thing about it."

10/18/07 - Sam Raimi may direct a proposed Evil Dead remake. The original 1981 film was about five friends camping in the woods when they discover an evil lurking in the forest. They find the Necronomicon and the taped translation of the text. Once the tape is played, the evil is released. One by one, the teens become deadly zombies. With only one remaining, it is up to him to survive the night and battle the evil dead.

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