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Spider-Man the Musical: Yes, Spider-Man will soon be hitting the stage with Julie Taymor directing. But don’t expect writer/director Sam Raimi to be along for the ride. “I’m not involved in the musical. That sounds very exciting and I’d love to go see it though. I love U2. It’s going to be great and Julie Taymor’s picture was great. Frida is the only one I saw, but I love that picture. I saw the LA production of Lion King and that was staged beautifully. I don’t know if that was her staging, but that was fantastic. But no, I’m not involved in that.”
Are There More Spider-Man Movies in Sam Raimi’s Future?: That’s the big question everyone wants an answer to. Raimi said, “Yes, Sony is making 4, 5 and 6 but I haven’t even had time to think about involvement and I don’t want to assume that they are definitely going to ask me. I don’t want to be presumptuous about that. Not yet I haven’t.”
Would it interest him? “If there was a great story to tell and I had a really good take on where he could grow to now, then I think it would be great,” said Raimi. “But I’d have to have a tremendous passion to do it because so many people love Stan Lee’s character. If I didn’t think I could do it fantastically, then I should step aside and let a younger director come in who loves the character and said he could do it with the greatest passion on the earth.”
Raimi added, “It would be very hard to say goodbye to Spidey.”
New Series = New Spider-Man?: Should a different actor play Spider-Man in a new Spider-Man trilogy? Raimi answered, “I don’t know. I would have to make that choice based on what the story is and what the characters are. It would be very hard to be involved without Tobey and Kirsten, for me at least.”
On Future Projects: “Right now we’re finishing up the post production on 30 Days of Night based on a graphic novel with Steve Niles. Jeff Lynch second unit directed this film and he’s someone that I really respect and a friend of mine. He’s going to be working on a film called Drag me to Hell and that’s a nonstop, low-budget horror picture, so that’s in preproduction.”
And the Evil Dead franchise is still alive and kicking. “I would definitely like to make another Evil Dead film with Bruce [Campbell] one day. I don’t know when, but I would definitely like to do it. I love working with Bruce.”
Raimi is comfortable talking about all these movie franchises because he knows all the interest will end sometime. “I know that that will pass. Mostly I see myself as who I was for the 20 years of making films professionally before my Super-8 days and that was ‘Mr Low Budget slockmeister horror film guy’. You know, low-budget crime thriller or low-budget supernatural thriller. Although I have the occasional different picture, I always found that it was strange that Amy Pascal hired me to do this film. I really loved the film and I wanted it, but I thought it was a bold and unusual choice. When it had that tremendous success franchise, I realized this too will pass. This is a very strange experience and I realized how unusual it was, and I know that it won’t be here long.”
