The Playlist

Sam Raimi To Produce MGM's 'Poltergeist' Reboot

By Kevin Jagernauth
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April 27, 2012 4:06 PM
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1 Comment

News

Update: THR confirms that Raimi will produce MGM's "Poltergeist" reboot and help select a director. The film has a script from "Rabbit Hole" and "Oz The Great And Powerful" writer David Lindsay-Abaire.

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To Get Ready for 'Cabin in the Woods,' Here Are The Top 5 Cabin Movies

By Drew Taylor
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April 10, 2012 10:05 AM
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3 Comments

Features

Everything from “The Truman Show” to John Carpenter’s “Halloween” is chopped up and blended in the pop culture Cuisinart that is Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon’s irrepressible “Cabin in the Woods.” But it quite clearly owes a certain debt to a very specific type of horror sub-genre set primarily in a rickety homestead in the forest, one just desolate or decrepit enough to be rife with the possibility of evil spirits, demented madmen, psychic trauma… or all of the above. When Whedon originally came to Goddard with the concept, he gleefully suggested making a “cabin movie.” While “Cabin in the Woods” ended up being much more than that (it's an acidic takedown and euphoric celebration of all things horror), we wanted to briefly cite five of the films that contributed, either directly or through the pop culture ether, to “Cabin in the Woods.”

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David Cronenberg To Direct TV Pilot 'Knifeman,' Sam Raimi Executive Producing

By Joe Cunningham
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March 13, 2012 9:46 AM
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0 Comments

Television

We've come to expect the unexpected from David Cronenberg, and we certainly didn't foresee that his first feature film in four years, "A Dangerous Method," would turn out to be a talky, stagey, history lesson (even with a good deal of spanking). Neither did we expect that he'd ever be directing a cast that included Robert Pattinson and Jay Baruchel, but we'll see them both in "Cosmopolis" later this year. And we certainly didn't expect that the director, having not stepped onto a television set in over two decades (he helmed an episode of the shortlived "Friday The 13th" series), would be headed back to the small screen.

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'Luther' Creator Neil Cross To Pen Sam Raimi Produced 'The Day Of The Triffids'

By Joe Cunningham
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March 2, 2012 10:46 AM
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1 Comment

News

John Wyndham's 1951 post-apocalyptic sci-fi-horror novel "The Day Of The Triffids" is a renowned classic. The story follows a scientist who has been working with lucrative plants called triffids -- tall plants with the deadly combination of intelligence and fatal aggression (which he believes have been bioengineered in Soviet Russia). After a meteor shower hits Earth and renders anyone who watched it blind, civilization begins to collapse and with much of the population left defenseless, the triffids begin to attack.

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D23: ‘John Carter,’ ‘Timothy Green’ Receive Lukewarm Responses

By Jeff Otto
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August 21, 2011 6:51 AM
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6 Comments

'Oz' & 'Frankenweenie' Presentations Are BriefAt this weekend’s D23 convention, Disney hopes to capitalize on the excitement around must-see projects like “The Avengers,” Pixar’s “Brave” and “The Muppets” by presenting a look at their entire slate of releases across all divisions. They opened with a lengthy animation presentation from John Lasseter that was heavy on Pixar (“Planes,” “Brave,” “Monsters University” and two new project announcements) and concluded with a Marvel presentation that, while brief, still managed to set fanboys hearts aflutter with a first extended look at “The Avengers.” In-between Disney faced their greatest challenge in holding audience attention for looks at some lesser known projects.

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Bruce Campbell Confirms A New 'Evil Dead' Film Is Gearing Up For Production

By Oliver Lyttelton
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July 12, 2011 1:21 AM
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0 Comments

Film Apparently Low-Budget, Sam Raimi Collaborator Bob Murawski InvolvedUpdate: Yes, the new "Evil Dead" movie is really for real this time and Bloody Disgusting has dug up more news on the film, revealing that Fede Alvarez will be directing the film. Who? Well, he made the hyped robot invasion short "Panic Attack!" that nabbed him a deal with Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures back in 2009. Looks like his big moment has arrived. Check out the short film below.

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The Small Screen: Steve Zailian & Richard Price Remaking BBC Hit 'Criminal Justice' For HBO

By Oliver Lyttelton
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June 21, 2011 3:02 AM
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0 Comments

Plus David S. Goyer Adapting Comic '100 Bullets' For Showtime, And Sam Raimi's 'Noir' Greenlit By StarzWhen what would otherwise be a sure-fire Oscar contender teaming Todd Haynes and Kate Winslet ends up as a five-hour miniseries, when the season finale of "Game of Thrones" is the talk of the town, and when Darren Aronofsky follows up his most successful film to date with a TV pilot written by a Pulitzer Prize-winner, you know that the idea that TV as a lesser medium is long gone. In the last six months alone, names like Gus Van Sant, Mark Romanek, Jody Hill, Tom Hanks, Neil Gaiman, Aaron Sorkin, Scott Rudin, David Hare, Zooey Deschanel, Robert Towne, Michael Mann, Ron Howard, Javier Bardem, David Fincher and Kevin Spacey have all been working on TV shows to one degree on another.

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Danny Elfman Makes Peace With Sam Raimi To Score 'Oz The Great and Powerful'

By Oliver Lyttelton
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June 20, 2011 12:55 PM
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4 Comments

Composer Also In Talks For 'The Hunger Games'Update: Movies.com confirms that Danny Elfman will be scoring "The Hunger Games" with T. Bone Burnett. That's pretty awesome.

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Rumor: Tim Burton, Sam Raimi, Shawn Levy Among Depressing Choices To Helm Inevitable 'Pirates 5'

By Oliver Lyttelton
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June 2, 2011 1:02 AM
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7 Comments

Chris Weitz, Alfonso Cuaron Also Allegedly In The Running"Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" might have made the much-mocked second and third Gore Verbinski-helmed entries in the series look like masterpieces in comparison, but audiences don't seem to care much -- especially internationally, moviegoers love them some Johnny Depp and it's already raked in a staggering $650 million in less than two weeks in release. Inevitably, this means that talk is turning to a fifth installment, a script for which has already been commissioned by Disney from Terry Rossio, who with partner Ted Elliott wrote all four installments to date.

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Michelle Williams To Make Tentpole Debut As Good Witch Glinda In 'Oz The Great & Powerful'

By Oliver Lyttelton
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May 17, 2011 10:32 AM
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0 Comments

Well, while we might roll our eyes slightly when it comes to the idea of "Oz The Great & Powerful," a prequel to classic "The Wizard of Oz," it's hard to deny that director Sam Raimi has landed a mightily impressive cast. The "Spider-Man" helmer might have lost Robert Downey Jr., who was originally intended for the lead role of Oscar Diggs (aka Oz), a conman who ends up being transported to the magical land seen in the 1939 Judy Garland musical, and becomes embroiled in a conflict between three witches, but he managed to replace him with newly anointed Oscar-nominee James Franco.

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