Sam Raimi has settled on his next directing effort.
As his follow-up to Send Help, his twisty survival thriller released by 20th Century/Disney earlier this year, Raimi will direct Magic, Lionsgate’s remake of the 1978 cult horror classic that featured Anthony Hopkins as a mentally unstable ventriloquist.
Raimi was already on board as producing the remake, having set it at the company last year. Also producing are Roy Lee as well as Chris Hammond and Tim Sullivan, the latter two who long championed the project and guided its development by tracking down the original rights.
Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, who wrote Send Help for Raimi and who previously penned Freddy vs. Jason and the remake of Friday the 13th, wrote the script for Magic.
Magic starred Hopkins as Corky, a magician who reaches fame alongside his ventriloquist’s dummy, the obnoxious and wisecracking Fats. Faced with the prospect of signing a network deal for his own show, but afraid of revealing his fragile mental state, the magician takes off for the Catskills, where he tries to reconnect with a high school love, even as Fats begins to murderously take control of the situation.
More to come.
