Sequel Confirmed For Sam Raimi’s ‘Darkman’ With ‘Don’t Move’ Directors Attached
It has been a few days since legendary filmmaker, Sam Raimi (Evil Dead trilogy, Spider-Man 1-3), blew a mountain of dust off the forgotten memory of many over-the-hill millennials after he announced that there’s a sequel in the works for his celebrated (but oft-overlooked) 1990 superhero/horror cult classic, Darkman.
It appears to be moving one step closer towards the greenlight with the latest scoop that brings two newcomers to the long-abandoned franchise.
In an exclusive by Dread Central, the project is being developed by directing duo, Brian Netto and Adam Schindler, for Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures. The two camps have already collaborated with the mildly-successful Netflix original Don’t Move in 2024, but as exciting as this may sound to fans of the immolated antihero, it’s still a little too soon to don the funnel cap, and do the “Dancing Freak” across a laboratory.
This all started when Raimi spoke to MovieWeb last Sunday, and dropped the bombshell that left a lot of people in a temporary state of stunned silence, but added that the one thing standing in the way of this realization is the plight of every film director, budget:
“Yes,” he said. “Ghost House Pictures, the company I work with, is trying to make the sequel right now. We’ve got a screenplay and two great directors, but we’re still having a little difficulty with the financing. It’s always the same in the movie business.”
Darkman was released in the summer of 1990 through Universal Pictures, and it tells the tragic story of Dr. Peyton Westlake (Liam Neeson).
He’s a brilliant scientist who was on the verge of a breakthrough with creating a synthetic skin to treat burn victims, but then Peyton’s attorney girlfriend, Julie (Frances McDormand), decided to “accidentally” leave paperwork at his laboratory that tied her billionaire boss (Colin Friels) to crime kingpin, Robert Durant (Larry Drake), and you already know who dropped by for a visit.
Durant and his thugs tortured Dr. Westlake before leaving him to die in an explosion which blew him through the roof, and into a nearby lake. He survives that blast, but is left horribly disfigured across most of his body, and his nerves are surgically severed to avoid spending the rest of his life screaming in faceless agony.
Peyton rebuilds the lab in an abandoned factory to continue work on creating new flesh for his scorched hide, but while also tracking down his assailants, and killing them one at a time.
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The film was a success at the box office, with film critics, and even with Raimi’s growing legion of Deadites from the pre-internet days.
It spawned two direct-to-video sequels, Darkman II: The Return of Durant (1995) and Darkman III: Die Darkman Die (1996) with a competent Arnold Vosloo (The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, Hard Target) taking over the lead role, a somewhat decent video game for NES in 1991, two comic book adaptations, several novelizations, and even an unaired pilot for an aborted TV series.
While this project is still in its fetal stages, and without a budget, Liam Neeson expressed interest in returning to the black trench coat, and face bandages for a new chapter of Dr. Westlake’s revenge saga when he was asked by ComicBook.com back in 2022. “That’s a good question,” Neeson said. “I would be very interested in reading the script. Very.”
While that irons itself out, Sam Raimi’s new horror/comedy, Send Help, opens in theaters this Friday, and one can only assume that its box office performance will have a significant bearing on the fate of this movie, but that remains to be seen.
Darkman is available to rent on Prime, and below is a popular scene among fans where Peyton growls what could quite possibly be the greatest elephant quote in film history at a terrified Julie:
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