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Sam Raimi
Birthdate: October 23, 1959 (66 Years Old)
Birthplace: Royal Oak, Michigan, USA
Almost a band name among fantasy and horror fans, filmmaker Sam Raimi (birthname: Samuel Marshall Raimi) has become synonymous with Spider-Man, which he has steered to three mega box-office hits in 2002, 2004, and 2007, which have grossed a combined $2.4 billion worldwide.
To the disappointment of his fan base, Raimi has made remarkably few movies as director and/or writer since Spider-Man 3, with only three features since 2007, including Doctor Strange in the Multiverse (2022) starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Rachel McAdams, and Patrick Stewart. But the Sam Raimi legacy is intact and enduring, extending to 1981 and the launch of a definitive cult series with The Evil Dead, starring Raimi regular (and high school classmate) Bruce Campbell.
Sam Raimi’s taste for blending comedy with horror was instantly apparent in The Evil Dead, and it’s the key to his success in this and the fantasy genres. From the first Evil Dead on through the finale, Army of Darkness (1992), Raimi displayed a showman’s talent for upping the ante visually and in terms of startling, innovative effects.
A deep student of the visual pyrotechnics of director Martin Scorsese (including the signature whip-pan effect), Sam Raimi used bigger studio budgets for fine use in his imaginative and original superhero movie starring Liam Neeson, Darkman (1990), and collaborated with longtime friends Joel and Ethan Coen on the script for The Hudsucker Proxy (1994).
Sam Raimi took an extended break from his best genres during the 1990s (including the unexpected 1995 Western with Sharon Stone and Gene Hackman, The Quick, and the Dead), but returned with a flourish in 2002 with Spider-Man, still one of the most successful of all MCU movies with $825 million in worldwide receipts, topped only by Spider-Man 3’s $895 million global earnings.
The good-natured mood of the trilogy, starring Andrew Garfield, belied the massive budgets of the productions, climbing as high as one-third of a billion dollars. Raimi has devoted most of his filmmaking energies since the under-performing fantasy epic, Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), to producing, including the Don’t Breathe franchise, such as Don’t Breathe 2 (2021) and Don’t Move (2024), Nightbooks (2021), Umma (2022), 65 (2023), Boy Kills World (2023), Locked (2025), Evil Dead Rise (2023), Evil Dead Burn (2026) and Play Dead (date to be announced).
Raimi returned to the director’s chair after a nine-year absence as helmer of one of the highest-budgeted (based on estimates) Marvel Studios/Walt Disney Studios’ franchise movies, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez, Michael Stuhlbarg and Rachel McAdams, written by Michael Waldron and produced by Kevin Feige, and earning a strong $956 million worldwide box office return. Raimi was director/producer of one of his rare non-franchise, non-sequel original projects, Send Help (2026), starring McAdams and Dylan O’Brien, co-written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, and released wide by 20th Century Studios.
