Legendary director, writer and producer Sam Raimi

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Sam Raimi is a legendary director, producer, screenwriter, actor and editor. His best friend since childhood was and remains a video camera.

Surge

The project that brought worldwide fame and popularity to Raimi is The Evil Dead, in which he acted in three roles: director, screenwriter and co-producer. Director Sam Raimi had barely celebrated his 21st birthday at the time of the film's production, and the project was originally conceived as a pastime-entertainment of a group of like-minded people: Bruce Campbell, Robert Tappert and Sam himself. The budget of the picture barely reached $ 350,000. This youth comedy horror movie brought fabulous profits to the creators, almost 60 times paid off at the box office around the planet. The story of college students who discovered the presence of demons from the other world on their heads in an abandoned forest house has acquired cult status. Sam Raimi, unexpectedly for himself, has become a legendary figure among fans of the horror genre and even among film critics from different continents. Thanks to his work, a lot of publications appeared in the press, singing the praises of class B films, the stylistic delights of the provincial, and therefore low-budget, semi-amateur cinema.

Pattern

Such a resounding success naturally provoked the author to release the sequel Evil Dead 2 (1987) and the third part - Army of Darkness (1992), which, together with the original picture, constituted one of the most innovative film franchises in terms of the horror genre. Sam Raimi in his subsequent projects retained his author's, recognizable style, declared in the first work. The second film was shot for a rather significant amount (unlike the first) - $ 3,500,000. And film critics did not cease to be surprised by the technical and techniques, special effects and other frills of the director. Five years after the release of the sequel, Sam Raimi is filming Army of Darkness, the third installment in the franchise, for $13,000,000. The author took some liberties, moving away from the classic canons of the horror genre into postmodern vaudeville, the director creates a unique black comedy that almost does not scare, but definitely makes you laugh.

On the brink of horror

On the same fine line between comedy and horror, the director's next work, The Man of Darkness (1990), balanced. Sam Raimi plunges the viewer headlong into an entertaining-adventure, spectacular and visually super-spectacular atmosphere. A stylish fantasy action thriller about the adventures of a mysterious inhabitant with a disfigured face motivates the appearance of two more sequels. After that, Sam Raimi, whose films are predominantly in the horror genre, succumbed to the fashionable trend of creating mystical thrillers and made a film about the gift of clairvoyance, appropriately called The Gift. On the rolethe central characters the director invited the stars of world cinema: C. Reeves, C. Blanchett and H. Swank.

2013 marked the author's return to the famous Evil Dead franchise, with the release of The Evil Dead: The Black Book, a remake of the original first film. Federico Alvarez takes the director's chair on this project, and Sam Raimi, whose films inspired filmmakers to create a remake, is a co-writer and producer.

Incredible audience response

The megaproject of the long-awaited and coveted by fans around the world of the film adaptation of the Spider-Man comic book series has become the loudest and most profitable for Raimi. Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" is a kind of "fairy tale for adults", which had a rather solid budget - $ 139 million, while the tape paid for itself six times in the world. This is the paradox. The fact is that the picture was not recognized by film professionals, while more than approvingly received by connoisseurs-fans of this comic book, however, as well as viewers inexperienced in this matter. No less popular and in demand were the next two parts of the trilogy. But adherents of the filmmaker's early work still favor the camera hovering above the ground in The Evil Dead compared to Spider-Man's dizzying flights from skyscraper rooftop to skyscraper rooftop in the teen blockbuster.

As a producer

Throughout his creative career, Raimi has repeatedly appeared inas a producer of all kinds of television series. A significant place in them is occupied by the so-called pseudo-historical "soap operas", for example, "The Adventures of Hercules" and "Xena - Warrior Princess" known to the domestic audience. Taking into account the fact that the trend of recurrence has recently appeared in Hollywood and the studios have taken up the resuscitation of old, proven movie hits of the 90s, it is possible that the series "Xena - Warrior Princess" will soon return. Sam Raimi does not deny the allegations of the ubiquitous paparazzi that he will work on the project with Robert Tapert, but remains intriguing - it is not yet known whether actress Lucy Lawless, who plays the role of Xena of the 90s, will return to the project.

Actor

Raimi-actor's filmography has more than 25 positions. Of course, Sam did not play the roles of the main characters, rather friendly cameos in his own or in produced films and episodic roles in the films of colleagues in the horror workshop, for example: Stryker's War, Maniac Cop, Miller's Crossing, Blood of the Innocent”, mini-series “The Shining”. Curiously, Raimi ordered not to be named in the credits of the following films, although he played the roles of minor colorful characters in them: Drag Me to Hell, Spider-Man 2 and in the Evil Dead trilogy.