Sam Raimi has settled on his next directing effort.
As his follow-up to Send Help, his twisty survival thriller released by 20th Century/Disney earlier this year, Raimi will direct Magic, Lionsgate’s modern take on a William Goldman novel that was previously turned into a 1978 cult horror classic that featured Anthony Hopkins as a mentally unstable ventriloquist.
Raimi was already on board to produce the remake, having set it at his eponymous production company last year. Also producing are Roy Lee as well as Chris Hammond and Tim Sullivan, the latter two who long championed the project and guided its development by tracking down the original rights.
Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, who wrote Send Help for Raimi and who previously penned Freddy vs. Jason and the remake of Friday the 13th, wrote the script for Magic, which will be an updated take on the 1976 novel by William Goldman. (Goldman also wrote the script for the original adaptation.)
Magic starred Hopkins as Corky, a magician who reaches fame alongside his ventriloquist’s dummy, the obnoxious and wisecracking Fats. Faced with the prospect of signing a network deal for his own show but afraid of revealing his fragile mental state, the magician takes off for the Catskills, where he tries to reconnect with a high school love, even as Fats begins to murderously take control of the situation.
The movie also starred Ann-Margret and Burgess Meredith and was directed by Richard Attenborough. The movie generated buzz before its release by 20th Century Fox with a TV ad that focused just on the face of the dummy, which declared “Magic is fun, we’re dead.”
Raimi Productions’ Zainab Azizi will also produce. Nathan Kahane and Paul Fishkin will executive produce alongside Andrew Childs for Vertigo.
Meredith Wieck and Pavan Kalidindi are overseeing the project for Lionsgate.
Send Help, which starred Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien, was a surprise and modest hit when it hit theaters on Jan. 30. The movie was a return to horror form for Raimi, generating some of his better reviews in more than 15 years.
“His coming aboard represents one of the truly great matches of director and material,” said Lionsgate’s motion picture group chair Adam Fogelson as part of a statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.
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