‘Don’t Move’ and ‘Werewolves Within’ Filmmakers Both Want to Make a New ‘Darkman’ Movie
Fresh off their Netflix thriller Don’t Move, which was produced by Sam Raimi in the wake of Raimi working with the filmmakers on the Quibi series “50 States of Fright,” directors Brian Netto and Adam Schindler have a dream project in mind. They want to bring Darkman back to life, a character introduced by Sam […]
Fresh off their Netflix thriller Don’t Move, which was produced by Sam Raimi in the wake of Raimi working with the filmmakers on the Quibi series “50 States of Fright,” directors Brian Netto and Adam Schindler have a dream project in mind. They want to bring Darkman back to life, a character introduced by Sam Raimi in his franchise-starting movie back in 1990.
Liam Neeson played the title character in Raimi and Universal’s Darkman, which essentially mashed together the superhero movie and the classic Universal Monsters movie. Neeson’s Peyton Westlake was a brilliant scientist left for dead in a violent attack, ultimately becoming a dark superhero who returns to exact revenge on the people who burned him alive.
Darkman was followed by two sequels, Darkman II: The Return of Durant in 1995 and Darkman III: Die Darkman Die in 1996, but the franchise hasn’t been heard from in the past 30+ years. But Neeson has expressed interest in reprising the role and filmmaker Josh Ruben (Scare Me, Werewolves Within) has been lobbying to direct a new Darkman reboot movie for a while now, with Raimi himself indicating a few years back that Universal was actively considering the franchise’s return. If Netto and Schindler have their way, they’ll be in consideration to direct.
“If we’re talking Sam-related, it’s Darkman,” Schindler recently told The Hollywood Reporter when he and Netto were asked about their ultimate dream project. He continued, “We talked about Darkman [with Sam Raimi]. We’ve got a love and an affinity for Darkman.”
Brian Netto chimed in to echo the same sentiments. He said, “Darkman was my favorite film for a good portion of my life. It was the movie, so Darkman would be really interesting.”
It’s interesting to note that Josh Ruben also recently brought up his Darkman dreams again in a post to the new social media platform Bluesky. In a thread, Ruben even laid out his pitch!
Ruben teases, “I wanted to make a legacy sequel (OK, not that original, but there’s more). I wanted to start this… reimagining? like something else. Darkman is a wild concept and we need a reset, a fresh (new) way in.” He continues, “I wanted to position this movie like a paranoid thriller about a sweet young woman tortured by recurring nightmares of a disfigured man. She gradually grows convinced that her nightmares may be manifesting into her real life.”
The filmmaker goes on to share images from his pitch deck for a potential Darkman movie, describing his vision as “nightmarish, trippy, colorful, fun, weird.” He notes, “What starts as a stalking horror turns into a Universal monsters-esque father daughter love story… And then, a dark superhero film. Scary Batman.” Read Ruben’s full pitch over on Bluesky now.
Stay tuned for more on the future of the Darkman franchise as we learn it.
