It was thirty years ago that Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead first hit screens and became an international cult phenomenon. And with the long gestating remake project now moving ahead the folks at Sony and FilmDistrict are banking on their ability to take that cult into the mainstream with the two companies teaming up to roll out the film worldwide.
Original creators Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell are all on board the re-do, which will reportedly not center on Campbell's Ash character, though Campbell has promised that he will make some sort of cameo appearance. Panic Attack director Fede Alvarez will take the helm, working from a script by himself and Rodo Sayagues with some polishing work by Diablo Cody.
To answer the inevitable "Why remake it?" question ... well, go back to the first sentence of this post. The core target audience for horror films in America is young men aged 18 - 24 and with this film in particular we're now looking at an entire core audience group that was not yet born when the original released, coming from a generation that is increasingly spurning video releases in general and particularly video of older titles. If you want to prolong the Evil Dead legacy the only way to do it is with a new release. And, if nothing else, for the old timers like me it should guarantee at least another ten releases of the original film from Anchor Bay.
Original creators Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell are all on board the re-do, which will reportedly not center on Campbell's Ash character, though Campbell has promised that he will make some sort of cameo appearance. Panic Attack director Fede Alvarez will take the helm, working from a script by himself and Rodo Sayagues with some polishing work by Diablo Cody.
To answer the inevitable "Why remake it?" question ... well, go back to the first sentence of this post. The core target audience for horror films in America is young men aged 18 - 24 and with this film in particular we're now looking at an entire core audience group that was not yet born when the original released, coming from a generation that is increasingly spurning video releases in general and particularly video of older titles. If you want to prolong the Evil Dead legacy the only way to do it is with a new release. And, if nothing else, for the old timers like me it should guarantee at least another ten releases of the original film from Anchor Bay.
Anchor Bay no longer owns the rights to EVIL DEAD or EVIL DEAD 2.
Excited about this as long as it is done right! Sounds awesome!
I have totally numb feelings regarding this despite loving Evil Dead.
What would rule - but is unlikely - would be if they used modern camera techniques to do some extremely intense, psychedelic version of the stop motion claymation of the original. That stuff blew my mind back in the day. The comic book lighting of the second would be nice as well. Damn - thirty years. I'm way old, bro!
Ok, Todd, you know how I feel about remakes so I won't beat the proverbial dead horse on that here. I do want to comment on your claim that the 18-24 age group is increasingly spurning video releases in general. I might have mentioned before but I am a Web Librarian and one of my tasks is updating statistics on items checked out in my county's library system, which includes DVDs, Blu-Rays along with the usual books and now e-books. It's a local sample size limited to one county in Northern California so I'm not trying to win an argument on that front, but I just want to share that based on stats for the past 3 years, video borrowing has increased quite dramatically. We've even broken down stats by age group and the 18-25 age range we've included in our data shows a rather noticeable increase in video borrowing. We've also included breaking down numbers even further by separating by genre and Horror movies tend to be the videos most borrowed by mentioned age group. Again, it's a limited sample size but I've seen further stats from libraries across the U.S. and a vast amount have seen an uptick in video rentals which many of us believe owes mainly to the benefits of libraries offering free services in the face of a bad economy and noticeable rises in video rental costs, such as with Netflix. Still, I'm also aware my stats concern with borrowing, not in sales which may be what you're driving at. Also, the general stats I've seen from libraries across the country don't break down by age range or genre like my county's library system has available for our own use. I just thought I'd share what I've encountered.
why?
Yet ANOTHER remake??....It must be so frustrating for new writers and filmmakers who have great, fresh and new ideas but cant get things made, to see these remakes coming out over and over again.
Can't they make an ORIGINAL movie about a bunch of students who open a cursed book and release some demons? Like an "Equinox" remake? Ehm...
Yep! And, somehow, I still enjoyed the ever evil shit out of that derivative piece of garbage! And will - FOREVER!
evil dead the musical... nuff said
the remake virus continues on....and on...and on....