Remember when a few months ago Sam Raimi talked about how he wanted to do a Batman film and we mentioned that he already, sorta, did with one of his earliest films, 1990’s Darkman starring Liam Neeson?
Well, it appears that the very same Darkman is getting a sequel many decades later.
Raimi spoke to The Wrap while promoting his MCU debut, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and confirmed that “Universal is talking about a Darkman sequel.” In addition, Raimi revealed that Universal already has a “producer attached”, suggesting that the project is already in its early stages of development. Unfortunately, outside of saying that he thinks the Darkman sequel is “cool”, Raimi could not talk more about the film.
Darkman was one of Raimi’s earliest projects and while it wasn’t a box office darling, it did well enough given its budget and was a huge hit among critics as well. The fact that it took this long for Universal to consider a sequel is a travesty.
The bad news is that Raimi probably isn’t involved. Since the Spider-Man director doesn’t know about the script and other details, Raimi isn’t attached to the Darkman sequel in any way. Then again, who knows? Raimi could come on board as one of the film’s producers or maybe even as a director or, at the very least, as a consultant. After all, Raimi was his creation after he couldn’t secure the rights to The Shadow and Batman.
Universal would be making a huge mistake if it didn’t ask Raimi to helm Darkman 2. After directing the original Spider-Man trilogy starring Tobey Maguire, Raimi is making waves again as the director of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Judging by how the early reviews put the film in a good position as the next big blockbuster hit for the MCU, Raimi will have a smorgasbord of offers waiting for him.
In an ideal world, we’d love to see Raimi work on Spider-Man 4 and Darkman 2, as well as an Evil Dead sequel, but we’d be happy even if only one of these came true.
