Sam Raimi may have returned to the director’s chair in a big way with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but it would seem that he’s looking to go back to his old-school horror roots with a remake of one of the highly underrated evil doll movies — Magic.
Directed by Richard Attenborough, Magic starred Anthony Hopkins as a ventriloquist who is at the mercy of his vicious dummy while he tries to renew a romance with his high school sweetheart. It turns out that Sam Raimi is a big fan of Magic, and producer Roy Lee let it slip on the Post Mortem with Mick Garris podcast (via Bloody Disgusting) that Raimi is actually gearing up to direct a remake of the movie.
“I’ve only worked with [Sam Raimi] as a producer on films… actually… the first time I’m gonna work with him as a director is on a remake of Magic,” Roy Lee said. “Which is something that we’re working on now. The Anthony Hopkins movie. We’re just actually hearing the final versions of the different takes from writers next week… [Sam] loved the original movie and the book written by William Goldman.“
As Roy Lee said, Magic was based on the novel by William Goldman, the legendary author behind The Princess Bride and Marathon Man. Goldman also penned the screenplays for All the President’s Men and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It sounds like the script for the Magic remake is still being developed, so I wouldn’t necessarily consider Sam Raimi directing to be a sure thing at this point. But just think about it… Sam Raimi and an evil ventriloquist dummy? Bring it on!
