The 'Spider-Man' director has prevailed in his effort to prevent Award Pictures' unauthorized 'Evil Dead 4: Consequences' from hitting theaters anywhere.
- Aug 29, 2012
AceShowbiz - An unauthorized "Evil Dead 4" movie will never see the light of day. The original "Evil Dead" director, Sam Raimi, has prevailed in his attempt to halt the so-called sequel from being released by Award Pictures.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, Raimi's Renaissance Pictures sued Award last May when Award was in the middle of making "Evil Dead 4: Consequences". Renaissance, which was formed in 1979 for the purpose of making the first "Evil Dead" film, accused Award of interfering with Raimi's plan to make his own sequel of the horror franchise for Sony Pictures and FilmDistrict.
Following the lawsuit, Award and its president, Glenn MacCrae, didn't file a court response. Still, MacCrae insisted that he planned to challenge. However, a California federal court has decided last week to permanently enjoin Award from using the "Evil Dead" trademark or marketing materials "as part of the title of a motion picture, television program, video game, play, book or any other form of entertainment provided or to be provided through any media."
Award Pictures argued that since Raimi released "The Evil Dead" in 1981, Renaissance showed lack of control over the franchise and allowed the title to be used in 20 other motion pictures. Award also noted Raimi's comment in a 2000 book that he would never do a sequel as proof that the "Evil Dead" trademark was abandoned.
Raimi's camp hasn't released an official statement regarding the issue. The "Spider-Man" director is currently producing his own "Evil Dead" remake, which is set to be released in 2013. The remake will be helmed by Federico Alvarez, and Raimi believes that it's going to be better than his original 1981 version.
"I always thought that Evil Dead was a little campfire story that you tell at a camp to kids to scare them at night. But, I don't think anybody thought it was a beautifully produced, theatrical experience," he recently told Collider.
"I always thought it could be done in a big screen movie type way that was really high quality with photographic effects... In fact, [the remake] has turned out to be a tremendous amount of fun because it's like an old melody that you write and you've brought in this really great, cool, young, hip jazz musician, and he's riffing on it and showing you places it could go that you never dreamed. It's very exciting for me."
Raimi went on gushing that the upcoming reboot would probably be really gory. "It's really bloody. It's so bloody, it will make your head spin. I've seen almost all the dailies and they're really going for it. It's gonna be grisly and intense and non-stop," he teased.
