Evil Dead remake AND Evil Dead 4 on the way...

[DC 536]

Evil Dead reboot gets a director in Federico Alvarez

And Evil Dead 4 could be on its way

By Josh Winning | Jul 13th 2011

 

Honestly, you wait 19 years for one Evil Dead, and then two come screaming at you at once.

 

First things first. According to Bloody Disgusting, the long-touted Evil Dead reboot has just landed a director in Federico Alvarez. Who, you ask? And well you might. All we know about Alvarez is that he hails from Uruguay and he’s yet to direct a feature film. He does have a handful of genre shorts in the bag, though, which must be what caught producer Sam Raimi and Ghost House Pictures’ eyes.

 

Alvarez is definitely a left-field choice, but going on those shorts, he could just be the man for the job. There’s also something pleasingly fitting about a young upstart making Evil Dead his first feature gig – not unlike Raimi himself.

 

As for Evil Dead 4, according to the franchise’s rock ‘n’ roll star Bruce Campbell, it’s almost ready to enter into production. Yesterday the cult legend tweeted: “Believe in the remake, dawg! The project is real. In the works. Cool as hell. Scary as hell.” Meanwhile, Dread Central reports that Army Of Darkness editor Bob Murawski has gone to Detroit to begin working on the film, which will apparently be a “small indie” thing like the first two films.

 

With all this Evil Dead news, it's being to feel a lot like Christmas...

 

Source: Bloody Disgusting

Credit: Total Film

[Guest Saz]

Reboot? Nah!

 

ED4? AWESOME!

[The Icon 152]

What Saz said, keep your reboots thank you very much.

 

ED4, bring it on.

[Guest The Beltster]

Nothing wrong with re-boots.

[Paul 584]

Yeah, I love R2D2.

[The Icon 152]

Nothing wrong with re-boots.

 

Except the fact many of them are shit I agree. (Many not all.)

[Guest The Beltster]

I think most people consider them shit when comparing them to the original which is always a mistake. I understand that if its a remake you're almost forced to compare it but if you go in and just watch it as a film on its own merits, most remakes arent as awful as people make out I dont think.

 

I've enjoyed alot of remakes, not when I compare them to the original though, but as their own film they can be fine.

[Guest Reno]

Just to point out; no one can really complaing about remaking The Evil Dead considering the best one, Evil Dead II, WAS a remake of the first film - Sam Raimi has also confirmed this on more than on occasion before anyone tires to do the arguement that it wasn't a remake.

 

Sure, this might have a different director but if Sam Raimi and Bruce have some sort of say in this, I'm going to be interested in it.

Edited July 14, 2011 by Reno

[Guest Saz]

Evil Dead 2 was a reinvisioning as opposed to a remake :)

 

Same director is fine, this is a totally new guy.

[Guest Reno]

That could be said the argued about pretty much every remake, barring shot-for-shot remakes like Gus Van Saant's Psycho.

 

On another note, THIS is the guy who will be directing the The Evil Dead remake:

 

[video=youtube;-dadPWhEhVk]

Edited July 14, 2011 by Reno

[Guest Jaycey Baby]

I think most people consider them shit when comparing them to the original which is always a mistake. I understand that if its a remake you're almost forced to compare it but if you go in and just watch it as a film on its own merits, most remakes arent as awful as people make out I dont think.

 

I've enjoyed alot of remakes, not when I compare them to the original though, but as their own film they can be fine.

 

How can you not compare them though, when they share a name and largely the same plotline with an iconic, and in the huge majority of cases, massively superior film? Take the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre - not an awful film, I thought, but with a different name, at least it would be able to stand on its own two feet as an homage, rather than a carbon copy with all that made the original film unique sucked out of it. It worries me that a younger generation who want to see what all the fuss is about might pick up the remake, conclude that it's just another turd in the mire of middling horror films and never know what made the concept special in the first place.

 

I don't know about you but I don't want to spend the rest of my life on some kind of mobius strip where the same films come out every ten years, with upstart directors mistakenly thinking they're up to the task of improving on films that were perfect in the first place, rather than giving us something new and fresh and with the potential of standing alongside the classics they're ssytematically murdering. Money wins, creativity dies. Welcome to the 21st century.

[dsrchris 190]

I'm interested in seeing what they could do with Evil Dead these days. As Reno said, Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell are involved, and I can't imagine them just letting any old crap get released. That short bodes well too, it looks like the guy knows his way round a camera.

 

In my mind at least, Evil Dead 2 improved on the original, and now they've got another crack at it with all the technology and film making tools they could ever wish for. It should (hopefully) be the definitive version that Raimi never got to make due to budget constraints and so on. As long as it doesn't get a 3D tag slapped on it for no good reason, then I'm interested.

[The Icon 152]

In other news it seems the remake of evil dead will be shot in 3D.

 

 

Really though I am not against the concept of remakes as much as I am against the fact there are way too many of them right now. Get some original scripts please hollywood.

[DC 536]

I don't know about you but I don't want to spend the rest of my life on some kind of mobius strip where the same films come out every ten years, with upstart directors mistakenly thinking they're up to the task of improving on films that were perfect in the first place, rather than giving us something new and fresh and with the potential of standing alongside the classics they're ssytematically murdering. Money wins, creativity dies. Welcome to the 21st century.

The part in bold makes it seem that remakes are a new concept when they've been around for almost as long as the movie industry itself.

 

As for the horror movie remakes, I wrote an article last year covering this very subject, why they aren't a bad thing and why they are just an extension of what has been happened for thousands of years.

 

You can read it here (and I suggest you do - *shameless shill*)

Get some original scripts please hollywood.

Again, it's the notion of "remake = bad, original = good" when that simply isn't the case. There are far more original failures than there are remake failures and if concepts weren't remade (or homaged), there would've been no Heat, no Die Hard, no Indiana Jones and countless other brilliant movies that are universally acclaimed (Bourne, Man on Fire, etc).

[dsrchris 190]

In other news it seems the remake of evil dead will be shot in 3D.

 

You got a source on that? Because if not, then I'm not believing it. It's like you waited for me to say "I hope it's not in 3D", just so you can put a post to say "oh yeah, other news says it's in 3D". So yeah, no source, me no believey.

[Guest Saz]

DC, just because you wrote an article, doesn't automatically make you right now... :)

 

Movies are always subjective, personally some remakes work because no one knows (or remembers) the film it was a remake of... the Thing for instance, was a remake of an old 50s (I think) B-movie.

 

But memorable films that have a bit of a cult status?

 

Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a farce compared to the genuinely horrific original, Halloween was frankly boring and you lost all fear of Myers when it was explained he was an abused kid who loved his mom.

 

In the 80s you didn't need a politically correct storyline explaining why the bad guy is a bad guy, I mean come on, how many bad guys nowadays genuinely love being bad?

 

Even with Spiderman, where the films are not even old enough for you to forget about them, they are rebooted and retold... Geeze!

 

Evil Dead is an absolute classic film that has a hell of a raw edge to it, to actually go back and try and improve it is kinda like George Lucas going back and ruining everything with Star Wars.

 

Finally, let's not beat about the bush or kid ourselves, this recent spout of remakes/reboots is all about making money, not art and as soon as you lose that integrity the film will suffer.

Edited July 15, 2011 by Saz

[The Icon 152]

You got a source on that? Because if not, then I'm not believing it. It's like you waited for me to say "I hope it's not in 3D", just so you can put a post to say "oh yeah, other news says it's in 3D". So yeah, no source, me no believey.

 

It's more old news, Sam Raimi was associated with a 3d evil dead show before and he said he planned on making any future films in 3d as well. Of course he may have changed his mind.

[DC 536]

DC, just because you wrote an article, doesn't automatically make you right now... :)

 

Movies are always subjective, personally some remakes work because no one knows (or remembers) the film it was a remake of... the Thing for instance, was a remake of an old 50s (I think) B-movie.

 

But memorable films that have a bit of a cult status?

 

Texas Chainsaw Massacre was a farce compared to the genuinely horrific original, Halloween was frankly boring and you lost all fear of Myers when it was explained he was an abused kid who loved his mom.

 

In the 80s you didn't need a politically correct storyline explaining why the bad guy is a bad guy, I mean come on, how many bad guys nowadays genuinely love being bad?

 

Even with Spiderman, where the films are not even old enough for you to forget about them, they are rebooted and retold... Geeze!

 

Evil Dead is an absolute classic film that has a hell of a raw edge to it, to actually go back and try and improve it is kinda like George Lucas going back and ruining everything with Star Wars.

 

Finally, let's not beat about the bush or kid ourselves, this recent spout of remakes/reboots is all about making money, not art and as soon as you lose that integrity the film will suffer.

That smilie makes you come across even smugger than you usually do, which takes some effort. :lol

 

I agree that movies are subjective (hence why I never said I was "right", more that I gave a reason/opinion on why remakes aren't the bane of cinema some make them out to be) and some movies are going to garner more critcism than others when a mooted remake is mentioned.

 

Your comments on Evil Dead are interesting because general opinion is that Sam Raimi did exactly what you put in your post - he went back and improved on it with Evil Dead II.

 

Again, the subjectiveness of the situation is such a broad scope, opinions are going to be varied across the board. Halloween, for example, wasn't just a remake of the original as Rob Zombie added a completely new first act. Sure, some liked it (I thought it was great) and some didn't, but he didn't just remake the movie.

 

Superhero films, for me, are a little out of the realms of standard movies because the comics reboot and rejig things so often, the films might as well do the same. Batman and Superman are the big two who had very well received movies 1980s that are still highly rated today, but they were rebooted with both Batman Begins and (to lesser acclaim) Superman Returns. The latter is being rebooted again and is shaping up to be something special (of course, time will tell if it sucks balls). I agree that Spider-Man is too soon to be rebooted and a sequel would've been preferred. However, I'm still excited for it and will be going to see it at the cinema.

 

Remakes have always been with us and always will be, with some fantastic films being updated versions of earlier work (and some of them esteemed features like Ben-Hur). Not all of them have been good, but a lot of them have already been written off before a single frame has been seen simply because they're remakes.

 

On a side note, I'm still convinced that Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho was an experiment to see if remaking something exactly (OK, there were minor differences) would produce a lesser film.

 

I guess they're never going to please everyone, but as you said, so long as they make money, they'll continue to be produced.

It's more old news, Sam Raimi was associated with a 3d evil dead show before and he said he planned on making any future films in 3d as well. Of course he may have changed his mind.

He may have changed his mind, but he's not the guy making the remake, so do you have a source for the remake being made in 3D? Edited July 15, 2011 by DC

[Guest Saz]

As though the "lol" really doesn't hide you don't like the fact anyone challenges your opinion on movies.

 

The Evil Dead comment has already been made and I think we've already established that a Director has the right to improve their work, Lucas had the right, whether he should was another matter. The issue with the new remake is that it isn't anything to do with improvement, it's to do with money. The original film is a timeless classic and doesn't need improving, plus why bother doing number 4 if you're just going to start again with a new actor and director?

 

If the first Halloween was a new act, that would make Halloween 2 the remake...

 

The Halloween series began as a psychologically minded killing fest, but the fact the film was remade, and let's not hide behind b*llocks like "first act" it was supposed to equal if not better the film and it bombed, the second was even worse, a boring film that tried to humanise the character that was Michael Myers.

 

Christ, they humanised Freddy Kruger...

 

Superman needed a reboot because frankly the film was a chore to watch, so I have no problem with that, plus the fact that the original actor had died and they were trying to continue the story onwards, they just did a p*ss poor job of it.

 

As you may not have read, seeing as you were so quick to make a remark about my smugness (which is irony at its best), but I already made the comment regarding remakes of films that people have had time to get over.

 

I can get a remake of Texas Chainsaw massacre (and the new sequel to the original that Clint Eastwood's son will be in), they just totally trivialised the horror in the remake and turned it into a Scream clone. TCM was in the 70s and is probably the absolute limit that remakes should be bordered on, branching into the 80s makes for disgruntled fans of the original films and hence the objections will be minimalised to those that fancy themselves film critics.

 

You know, I'd honestly sing from a different hymn sheet if these remakes were any good, but they leave themselves open to comparison, they might as well have Ewe Bol directing them on a budget.

[DC 536]

If the first Halloween was a new act, that would make Halloween 2 the remake...

 

The Halloween series began as a psychologically minded killing fest, but the fact the film was remade, and let's not hide behind b*llocks like "first act" it was supposed to equal if not better the film and it bombed, the second was even worse, a boring film that tried to humanise the character that was Michael Myers.

Apologies if I wasn't clear enough, when I said "first act", I meant just the first act of the movie (i.e. the childhood years). That was barely touched upon in the original, so Zombie added that himself, which, if nothing else, shows he at least tried to do something more than just a copy of what went before.

 

Also, as an aside, the film didn't bomb (unless you mean creatively) as it made more than five times it's budget just during its cinema run.

 

Christ, they humanised Freddy Kruger...

To be fair, that was done long before the remake. OK, it wasn't done on such a scale, but part six gave him a semi-detailed backstory going all the way to his childhood (something the remake didn't do).

 

As you may not have read, seeing as you were so quick to make a remark about my smugness (which is irony at its best), but I already made the comment regarding remakes of films that people have had time to get over.

I know you did, which is why I agreed with you in my post (even using the actual phrase "I agree with you...").

You know, I'd honestly sing from a different hymn sheet if these remakes were any good, but they leave themselves open to comparison, they might as well have Ewe Bol directing them on a budget.

Are you just talking about horror or remakes in general? Sure, some suck majorly, but the same can be said for plenty of non-remake movies as well (the back catalogue of Uwe Boll, since you mentioned him, comes to mind).

 

A bad movie is a bad movie, regardless of whether it's a remake or not. I just get annoyed when a film is automatically dismissed (and I'm not pinning this on anyone in particular) because it's a remake. I've heard people say how remakes should be banned and then go on to list one as their favourite movie (Heat and Bourne usually).