SamRaimi

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? David Slade, apparently. The director of Hard Candy and 30 Days of Night, as well as the upcoming third installment in the overwhelmingly popular Twilight franchise, is bringing pulp hero The Shadow back to life in an all-new feature film for Twentieth Century Fox.

In his original incarnation, the character was a vigilante with multiple secret identities and the ability (which he learned in the Far East) to cloud the minds of men into believing he was invisible. Some might remember Russell Mulcahy's 1993 The Shadow, which starred Alec Baldwin as the big-nosed, wide-brimmed, two-gunned crimefighter, saving New York City from an atomic bomb. Sam Raimi is onboard as the new film's producer, as the character has long been a passion project for Raimi.

Hollywood hasn't had the best of luck in turning period heroes like Flash Gordon, The Spirit, or The Phantom into big hit movies, but it hasn't stopped them from trying every few years. We'll find out soon if Slade and Raimi are able to turn that box office stigma around.

(source: Latino Review)

After butting heads over Spider-Man 4 for what seems like the better part of the last month, Sony/Columbia Pictures and director Sam Raimi have parted ways on the project. The shift is so dynamic that the Spider-Man 4 movie has been canceled altogether in favor of a wholesale reboot of the entire franchise.

From Sony's official press release: "Peter Parker is going back to high school when the next Spider-Man hits theaters in the summer of 2012. Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios announced today they are moving forward with a film based on a script by James Vanderbilt that focuses on a teenager grappling with both contemporary human problems and amazing super-human crises. The new chapter in the Spider-Man franchise produced by Columbia, Marvel Studios and Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin, will have a new cast and filmmaking team."

Not long ago, Chud reported that Sony wasn't keen on the Vulture as the main threat for Spider-Man 4, but, today, Harry Knowles' sources at AICN told him the disagreements between Raimi and the studio may have had something to do with a storyline that would've seen Peter Parker and Mary Jane having a baby together. It certainly makes Peter and MJ a very adult couple, which, based on Sony's desire to kick Parker all the way back into his high school years, is not the direction Sony wanted to go at all. In Hollywood, teens are the epitome of sexy; parents, not so much.

Count Sam Raimi among the people who saw District 9 and thought, "Gee, why can't more studios put out budget-conscious gems like this?" The Spider-Man director will be playing Peter Jackson to his own Neill Blomkamp of sorts, a Uruguayan director by the name of Federico Alvarez. After the buzz around Alvarez's alien invasion short (posted below for your viewing pleasure) Panic Attack! had him making rounds in Los Angeles, Raimi's production shop Ghost House Pictures signed the director for what will be Alvarez's feature film debut.

The reports have been translated from Uruguayan newspaper El Paris, but here's what everyone seems to agree on -- the feature, like District 9, will be budgeted in the $30-40 million neighborhood and Raimi will take on a mentor role, thus saving Alvarez from the ugly, business part of things. The picture will shoot in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Montevideo, Uruguay and will likely involve giant robots, which play a big part in Panic Attack! What is unclear is if this feature-length will be based on Panic Attack! at all.

She's a comic book cat burglar in a skin tight black cat suit. She straddles a fine, dark line between heroism and self-serving villainy. She has an on-again, off-again sexually-charged relationship with a costumed hero, that often gets in the way of his crimefighting.

Sound familiar? It will be interesting to see how director Sam Raimi plans on making Marvel's Black Cat stand-out from DC's Catwoman, if the rumors on Comics2Film are to be believed. Seems actress Rachel McAdams has had some closed-door meetings with Spider-Man 4 producers for the role of Felicia Hardy aka The Black Cat. Presumably, the character would provide a new love triangle for Peter Parker, with Black Cat's intense attraction to Spider-Man complicating things between Peter and Mary Jane.

There's been some scuttlebutt on the net that Spider-Man 4 would feature The Lizard as the primary villain. Comics2Film casts some doubt on that, by stating that the production is in the casting stages for the lead villain role. This would seem to discount The Lizard, whose alter-ego Dr. Curt Connors (played by Dylan Baker) has already appeared in the previous Spider-Man films as Peter Parker's college professor.

Once Sam Raimi is done slinging webs for Spider-Man 4, he's going to jump over and attempt to bring a live-action adaptation of World of Warcraft to the big screen. Based on the mega popular online role-playing game that tends to produce thousands upon thousands of fans who refuse to eat, sleep, work, or leave the house, Raimi told MTV that Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan) is the lucky one who's been assigned the task of taking this game full of fantastical characters and transforming it into a film that could potentially launch a brand new franchise.

Says Raimi, "We would choose... something that encompasses lands and characters and storylines, and we would be true to it. But our story may or may not be about one of those central characters. We want to be really faithful to the game. 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."

Sounds like a plan, though the obvious problem lies in convincing fans of the game to actually leave their house to go watch the film instead of finding a way to illegally download it so they can have it on in the background as they play more World of Warcraft. Adds Raimi, "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."

What do you think? Can a World of Warcraft film actually work?

(Looks like Sony finally found a way to weave that much-discussed two-film arc for Spider-Man, which was a story Cinematical first broke wayyy back in May of 2008. Here's Elisabeth Rappe reporting)

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.

Read the rest at Cinematical

From Cinematical

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 ...

By: Todd Gilchrist

As encouraging as it must be for a filmmaker to be recognized or associated with just one iconic film or franchise, Sam Raimi is the creative force behind two of them. He launched his eclectic career almost 30 years ago with the original Evil Dead, a horror classic that spawned two sequels and countless imitators, and then established himself as an A-list adaptor of comic book material with Spider-Man, which also begat sequels, and perhaps more importantly, several billion dollars or so in worldwide grosses. His latest film, Drag Me to Hell, is a return to the genre material that helped make a name for himself, albeit with the sensibility of a guy who survived one of Hollywood's biggest franchises, and took a few lessons away from the experience to boot.

Cinematical recently sat down with Raimi to discuss his new film, and the director demonstrated that in addition to being a hit machine with the mind of a born moviemaker, he's also a smart, generous, and remarkably humble fellow. While discussing his work on the film, he took time to respond, and kindly, to folks who both love and hate his legacy, before deconstructing his acrobatic cinematic style, and finally, digging deep to find a few films that meant something special to him as a young cineaste. And while he managed to pick consummate summer movie experiences that, quite frankly, didn't actually happen during the summer, the convenience of a Google search and the forgiveness of a grateful nation lying in wait for his films more than makes up for his lack of seasonal accuracy.

By: William Goss

Alright, let's get the Twilight out of the way first. Entertainment Weekly has a couple of new images from the set of New Moon, and if anything, I suppose it's small solace that director Chris Weitz looks like he has this shoot on schedule for a November 20th release. For those of us who didn't know, this sequel concerns Bella (Kristen Stewart) and her divided love for both vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson - SQUEE!) and werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner). Maybe Kate Beckinsale should give her some advice on how to handle this...

Now, in somewhat related news, the rumor du jour as to which villain will play a part in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 4 has turned to Morbius, the well-meaning scientist (natch) who unwittingly transforms himself into a psuedo-vampire (no, thank you, Wikipedia!). The notorious showman plays coy when asked in this FearNET interview (that's hosted on... CHUD?), but then goes on about the appeal of vampires in a way that doesn't rule the possibility out...

Spider-Man 4 is scheduled for a 2011 bow, so let me use this as yet another opportunity to nudge you to support Raimi's very fun Drag Me to Hell this weekend.