Sam Raimi often falls by the wayside when talking about the influential directors of the last 40 years. But the man not only played a major role in shaping the modern horror film with his “Tanz der Teufel” series, but also set the course for today’s superhero cinema with the “Spider-Man” series. After Sam Raimi last with “Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness” was able to celebrate a successful comeback, the cult director has already started a new project.
This is a new edition of the largely forgotten horror drama “Magic – A Scary Love Story” (alternative title: “Magic – The Doll of Horrors”) by Richard Attenborough (“Gandhi”, “The Bridge at Arnhem”). The 1978 film revolves around Anthony Hopkins (“The Silence of the Lambs”) played Charles Withers, nicknamed Corky, who tries his hand at ventriloquism and becomes more and more at the mercy of his puppet Fats.
In the Post Mortem With Mick Garris podcast, producer Roy Lee recently opened up about the fact that a “Magic” remake is in development: “I’ve only worked with Sam Raimi as a producer on films, actually…the first time I’ve worked with him as a director is on a remake of ‘Magic‘. That’s something we’re working on right now. The Anthony Hopkins film. We’ll be listening to the final versions of the various takes from writers over the next week. Sam loves the original film and the book written by William Goldman.
So it is also an affair of the heart for Sam Raimi, who could return to his roots even more strongly here, since in this case he is certainly given a much freer hand than with Marvel (although “Doctor Strange 2” also unmistakably bore his signature). Of course, Sam Raimi could always step down as director and just serve as producer, but of course it would be nice to see Raimi once again express his flair for subtle tension building – especially in combination with a nasty ventriloquist dummy!
