As if he hadn't done enough by unleashing the Deadite plague upon the planet, it now appears Sam Raimi has his eye on a potential World War III. At least, that'll be part of the subject matter in a new movie he's developing.
Yes, if you listened to the mammoth live Empire 200th Podcast, you might have heard our Chris Hewitt hoping that Raimi would once again unfold his director's chair. Sounds like the man himself was listening, as he's now in the early stages of work on something that is actually working titled World War III for Warner Bros.
It'll draw from futurist George Friedman's nonfiction 2009 best-seller, The Next 100 Years: A Forecast For The 21st Century. It uses historical trends to try to predict what might happen in the coming decades, with topics including America switching its combat focus from the War on Terror to a new Cold War with Russia, China fracturing like the USSR into several city states, Mexico becoming a player on the world stage, space becoming increasingly militarised in the hunt for resources and the US apparently experiencing a new Golden Age in the second half of the century (so it's not all bad, we suppose).
No writer is attached yet, and the concept gives plenty of scope for a film, so there's no indication what form the story will take. But it could be interesting to see Raimi working on a film with such a fascinating – and scary – topic.