SamRaimi Tagged Articles at Cinematical

So here's some "less is more" comic book flick news* that may make you feel a little better about Spider-Man 4: Apparently A) there will be only one villain, which would be great, and B) that villain will (finally!) be Curt Connors aka The Lizard. And here's the best part: We don't have to wait for some gimmicky casting ploy, because the franchise already has the excellent Dylan Baker playing the role! Yes, Peter Parker's one-armed college professor will, after waiting patiently through three villain-packed films, get to shed his humanity and terrorize our favorite web-slinger with cold-blooded reptility. (Reptileness?)

Both MarketSaw and Collider have more information, but of course details are very sketchy at this early point. If these early reports are true, I offer a back-pat to Sam Raimi and his writing / producing team for trying to scale the next sequel back a bit, instead of trying to wedge six baddies into the flick just to sell a few extra Happy Meals. It's safe to assume that Mr. Raimi considers Spider-Man 3 the weakest of the series, and if the new goal is to simply deliver an old-school mano e mano face-off between a man-spider and a man-lizard, well I'm just fine with that.

Odds are you'll see more Spider-Man 4 news at this very website as it becomes available.

*MarketSaw.com seems pretty confident that their source is accurate on this information, but of course we should take it all with a grain of salt until we get word from someone on the production team, and on the record.

The news that Sam Raimi would be helming the game movie of all game movies, Warcraft was met with both squeals of joy, and stunned silence by the movie blogosphere. But now that it's had a little time to sink in, people seem to be really looking forward to it. Some might even wish he'd do a last minute duck out of Spider-Man 4. But at least the wait is broken up by a bit of news, and that's Raimi announcing his screenwriter. MTV and Variety both report that Robert Rodat is set to pen Warcraft for Raimi and Warner Bros.

"We want to be really faithful to the game," Raimi told MTV. "We would have our writer, Robert Rodat, really craft an original story within that world that feels like a World of WarCraft adventure. Only obviously it's very different 'cause it's expanded and translated into the world of a motion picture. [We hope to capture] the Horde and the Alliance and the mythology that takes place in the game, and the archetypes that the game presents. I think we would try and find touchstones within the game to make it accurate and true and choose one or some of the lands that are portrayed in the game with as much accuracy and authenticity as possible."

Rodat might strike some as an odd choice as he's best known for the screenplay to the relentless Saving Private Ryan and the fanciful The Patriot. But both scripts prove he knows his way around a sweeping action scene, and revels in heroes with puffy shirts and villains with cold sneers. So this could turn out quite well indeed.

I can't wait for the day when Spider-Man 4 leaves the world of speculation, and moves before the camera. Until that day, we can enjoy plenty of rumors and hints as to who or what Spidey will be battling in #4.

Sam Raimi recently gave a few more riddles to the MTV Splash Page, revealing that they still don't have a villain for Spider-Man 4. While Raimi "loves" the story of the Lizard, the Spider-Man team isn't exactly looking to tie up those little mentions of Dr. Curt Connors. Instead, look for a baddie who will toy with Peter's internal and external demons a little bit: "What we're trying to do right now is really understand the journey Peter is going to go on this time and have the villain maybe be a counter to that growth, something that he has to overcome. Or maybe he has to grow in a way to overcome the villain, because there always seem to be stories of coming of age, of a young man growing up and learning things about life, so once we are identifying the exact movement that Peter has to grow to, I think the villain-and we're trying this right now; we're trying to choose a villain based on who would be the proper counter to that growth, so we really have dramatic conflict."

With several drafts and screenwriters behind them, and Spider-Man 4 set to go before cameras in March or April, I'm honestly surprised they still don't have a villain in mind. Naturally, Raimi might be exaggerating and they are working with one (there's a coy "I can't say" at the beginning), but I find its sketchiness a bit troubling. What about you, Cinematical readers and Spidey fans?And does Raimi's latest riddle give you any indication of who the villain might be?

Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell comes out on home video next week. Universal's essential DVD release contains both the unrated "director's cut" and the theatrical cut, although the unrated cut runs just a few seconds shorter than the theatrical cut. The major change -- I'm told -- is a moment's hesitation before the main character considers... well... it has to do with a cat. In the theatrical cut, the character hesitates for a moment, which, frankly, makes the situation all the more squeamishly gruesome, and in the other cut, she charges right in for a more sudden and gorier effect. This tiny change says a lot about Sam Raimi, who was once a talented B-movie director with a narrow range, and has now graduated to one of Hollywood's major A-list players, as well as being one of the cinema's most interesting potential masters. Best of all, he shows up for work in a suit and tie. How cool is that?

Drag Me to Hell is currently one of my favorite movies of 2009, and I like it for some of the same reasons I like Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy. More than nearly anyone else alive, Raimi has a feel for the movement of cinema, and the sheer joy behind that movement. His films pulse and flow and dodge and dart and fly; they never move too fast or too slow and the cuts always seem to arrive right on time. His films aren't roller-coaster rides, exactly, nor are they meant to be "intense." It's more like they pick you up and carry you along; it's an exhilarating ride not because the vehicle is moving fast, but because the road is interesting.

Given the long and fruitful friendship of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, it should really come as no surprise that Campbell is going to be in Spider-Man 4. What could be surprising is how much screen time he might earn this time around.

Campbell told Access Hollywood that Spider-Man 4 is set to begin shooting January 2010, and that he's been told by Raimi that he has "a major part. The kicker is that the well-chinned actor knows not what that role might be. Access Hollywood immediately began speculating that he'll be stepping into the villain's shoes, and says fans are touting him for Mysterio. But hey, in our own comments we currently have one vote for Campbell as Mysterio and one for him as Lizard, so I'm going to borrow their investigative technique and say that fan consensus is divided.

As Slashfilm notes, "a major part" could simply mean that Campbell's recurring cameo could throw another kink into Peter Parker's life. As Spidey and Campbell fans know, every time he's appeared in the series he's done something to nudge the superhero into his destiny, and it could be that he does something very drastic to Parker's life. Perhaps he's Mephisto and he'll pull a One More Day, reverse the entire franchise series, and that's how we'll get our reboot.

The Spider-Man franchise might just be heading down the road for a divorce from Sam Raimi and all his players, if I'm interpreting Variety and its sources right. Sony has "quietly" hired screenwriter James Vanderbilt to pen the fifth and sixth installments of the web-slinger franchise. Nothing wrong with that at all, of course. Vanderbilt has good work to his name, and a superhero franchise could do a lot worse than hiring the Zodiac screenwriter. However, Raimi didn't care for Vanderbilt's take and replaced him with David Lindsay-Abaire. He's currently having Gary Ross rewrite that script. However, Sony / Columbia and Marvel Studios loved Vanderbilt's ideas, in part because they form a big, interconnected storyline. (I can see Marvel all over that, can't you?) In fact, that was the original plan for Spidey films 4 and 5 which were to be shot back to back, but the idea was scrapped.

But here's where things could get really ugly. Raimi, Tobey Maguire, and Kirsten Dunst are reportedly not signed to installments 5 and 6, and with Raimi boarding World of Warcraft, the studio is even more uncertain that he'll return. So Vanderbilt's scripts are being eyed not as sequels but as a blueprint for a franchise "reboot." Obviously, there's no further details on what that would mean beyond a new cast and crew.

But Sony is that anxious for more Spider-Man, and they feel the franchise is moving too slowly. Now, I'm sure a lot of fans feel the same way, but at what cost do we want more Spider-Man? I'm cool with them bringing another director on board, as it could breathe some fresh life into the series, but new actors? If Spidey was a character that had numerous incarnations, that'd be one thing, but he's only ever been Peter Parker, and Parker and Maguire are one and the same in my mind. This is going to be one web that'll be very interesting (and possibly very disappointing) to see Sony weave ...

At the beginning of the summer we told you how this year our theme was Summer Appreciation, hence the Our Favorite Summers series and our very cool director's series. Our intention was to speak to as many directors with films coming out during the summer and not only chat about their particular movie, but the summer movie season in general. What were some of their favorite summer moviegoing experiences, or favorite summer movies, etc ...

Though we're still not done shoveling out all those interviews, we wanted to drop in with a little recap of the ones we've already conducted in case you're looking for something to browse through this weekend as we segue into the last month of the summer, August. Links to all our special summertime director interviews below, along with some choice quotes.

McG, Terminator Salvation
"Raiders. That was a time when I would characterize the big movies as the best movies, and so rarely is that the case. That was the case last summer with Iron Man and The Dark Knight, which were the biggest movies of the year and arguably the best movies of the year. So I would welcome that sort of summer moviemaking coming back, and I'm a child of [Star Wars] Episodes IV, V and VI, and that's just where my head is. Those are the seminal moments of my life."

Pete Docter, Up
"I kind of look at it as everybody at the studio has a really unique set of skills. Like, if I was building a house, for example, I could probably do it myself to some degree, or at least teach myself, but why not get the greatest craftsmanship that I possibly could for every part of that house?"

Sam Raimi, Drag Me to Hell
"The point to make it in the first place is to make a horror story – to entertain, thrill and scare the bejeezus out of the audience, if I can, and make them jump and shout, and if I can, make them have a good laugh too."

Much more after the jump

There are plenty of fun, or at least serviceable, video games based on movies, and there have been plenty of abominable ones as well. I've paid cash money to see freaky skinless zombie dogs in Resident Evil and Resident Evil: Apocalypse, and Lara Croft swing from the ceiling in at least one of the Tomb Raider movies. I've wisely avoided the Uwe Boll poopfests, especially Postal, an adaptation of a game that was a cheaply made piece of crap when I first played it in, oh, the early '00s. Let's not even discuss the Mortal Kombat movies or the Super Mario Bros. movie that Harold Ramis wisely passed on. There are just so many mediocre games that have gotten way too much screen time.

But perhaps the cinema will begin to shine for us video game/film nerds. (Not too brightly, though -- it's dark in here with all the monitors!) There are plenty of excellent games out there, and even if they don't all quite make it to the big screen, recent developments have got me hopeful that really cool directors are sitting up and taking notice.

While Cinematical has been busy covering all the movie-related Comic Con treats, our sister site TV Squad has been knee deep in all-things boob tube. Similar to film, all the genre-based TV shows bring their stars to Comic Con to preview upcoming seasons and geek out with fellow fans. Today is the biggest day for television at Con, and so we'll report back tomorrow with some of the stuff our friends over at TV Squad managed to uncover -- but in the meantime, here's a taste of what they've been up to so far.

-- Did you know Starz was getting ready to premiere a new show called Spartacus: Blood and Sand? No, it's not Sparta or anything (it actually takes place in Rome and follows the city's most famous gladiator), though the brand new trailer totally looks like Ridley Scott's Gladiator ... if Zack Snyder directed it instead. Seriously, the thing has such a 300 vibe that for a second I thought it was from the same team, but it's not. Know who's behind this? Sam Raimi. Yup, it's Raimi, Rob Talpert (Drag Me to Hell) and Steven S. DeKnight (Smallville) executive producing, while Lucy Lawless (Xena: Warrior Princess), Peter Mensa (300) and Erin Cummings (Dollhouse) star. The show itself looks bloody, vicious and pretty awesome, especially for those who dug the violence overload in 300.

Watch the trailer after the jump and let us know what you think ...

The long-in-gestation feature trek for World of Warcraft has been slow, and even after we learned that a script was still in the works last year, it's been a quiet trek. But now the lid might be blown sky-frakking-high, and maybe silence was the best policy!

According to AICN, there's a director attached to the film -- and it ain't Uwe Boll. No, it's a whole lot better -- Sam Raimi. [Variety has just confirmed this] And with that, the whole potential for this adaptation was thrust into a whole different universe. According to Harry Knowles, this deal is set and will hit the trades sometime in the next week or so. "Sam is going to make a huge budget fantasy bit of unf**kingimaginable coolness -- and it will be yanked from the World of Warcraft."

Warcraft will be Raimi's oyster, and what he pulls from that should be quite sweet. Having said that, I'm going to throw out a hope of mine -- that some talented WOW-loving ladies in Hollywood get to be involved. Of course, the top of that list would be Felicia Day. After creating The Guild, she's just got to be included in some shape or form. Star perhaps?

What say you, WOW fans? Does Raimi tickle your fancy, or would you rather ignore Hollywood and keep playing? And how should he go about making this?