EXCLUSIVE: Sam Raimi, architect of the Evil Dead franchise, has closed a deal to direct and produce Send Help, a new horror thriller for 20th Century Studios.
Not yet officially greenlighted by the studio, according to our sources, the film is described as a two-hander horror thriller set on an island, falling somewhere between Rob Reiner’s Stephen King adaptation Misery and Robert Zemeckis’ classic Castaway.
Script is by the A Quiet Place duo of Bryan Woods and Scott Beck. Raimi will produce alongside Zainab Azizi, President of his Raimi Productions, and we’re told the film is expected to get a theatrical release.
One of the most influential genre filmmakers still working, Raimi is responsible for the Evil Dead franchise, whose most recent installment, Evil Dead Rise, grossed over $147 million worldwide last spring. As we were first to report, two new, untitled installments from directors Francis Galluppi and Sébastien Vaniček and Raimi and Robert Tapert’s Ghost House Pictures are currently in the works.
As a director, Raimi’s most recent credit is Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which generated over $955M globally for Marvel. Previously collaborating with Beck and Woods as a producer on the Adam Driver sci-fi pic 65, which they helmed for Sony, he’s also known for his directing work on the Spider-Man franchise, as well as titles like Drag Me to Hell and Oz the Great and Powerful. As a producer, his upcoming films include the horror thriller Don’t Move, which Netflix swooped on in April, and the horror thriller Locked, starring Bill Skarsgård and Anthony Hopkins.
Breaking out with their script for A Quiet Place, Beck and Woods also co-wrote and exec produced 20th’s The Boogeyman, which was released in theaters last summer. Most recently, the duo wrote, directed and produced the anticipated A24 horror thriller Heretic, starring Hugh Grant, Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher, which hits theaters November 15.
Raimi is represented by CAA and Craig Jacobson and Stewart Brookman at Hansen, Jacobson, Teller. Beck and Woods are repped by CAA, Anonymous Content, and Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.
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