Following the Spider-Man 4 debacle, all eyes were on World of Warcraft as Sam Raimi's next potential gig behind the camera. But IESB are reporting that an inside source at Camp Raimi reckons the director may well opt for The Shadow, before galloping off to Azeroth.
All so much hearsay of course, but maybe, just maybe, there's something in it. Raimi was already attached to The Shadow as a producer, and **Warcraft **isn't yet written, while Siavash Farahanl handed in the second draft of his Shadow script in the second half of last year.
As a lower-rung hero - at least in terms of general moviegoer recognition - The Shadow isn't necessarily a huge undertaking, meaning Raimi could possibly bring some of his back-to-basics Drag Me to Hell approach to the material. If that was taking us back to the Evil Dead days, maybe this could hark back to Darkman. Plus the "ferocious" script that IESB describe - broken bones, meat grinders - sounds like old-school R-rated Raimi's kind of fun.
The Shadow, for those unfamiliar, started life on American radio in the 1930s (voiced in early days by Orson Welles), and burgeoned into pulp fiction, comics and b-movies, the last of which was directed by Russell Mulcahy in 1994, starring Alec Baldwin. A tortuous back-story means that the Shadow identity is shared between WWI aviator Kent Allard and wealthy socialite Lamont Cranston, but in both forms he's a master of disguise, master of hypnotism, crime-fighter and wearer of a big hat. His chief sidekick is slinky 40s it-girl Margot Lane. His nemesis in Farahanl's screenplay is called Mr Remorse..,
As we said, it's absolutely just a rumour at this stage. But who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?