Rumor #2 - Sam Raimi in talks for Clash of the Titans

Wow, IESB are getting some big rumor scoops today. Here’s one that I would just love to be true.

Now I hate remakes, I really do. Nothing bugs me more than seeing films were have grown up and loved turned into some studio driven shit by talentless and boring ‘yes man’ directors. Most recently we’ve seen it with The Wicker Man and The Omen, the original to both movies I have grown up and adored.

Sometimes though and it’s rare, a talented director will come along and make a worthy remake to the original material. Peter Jackson’s spectacular version of King Kong is an awesome movie. Zack Snyder’s version of Dawn of the Dead I prefer to the original (which I did like before hand very much). John Carpenter did it with The Thing. David Cronenberg did it with The Fly… and so on and so on and so on.

I’ve bitched about a Clash of the Titans remake as recently as April. My main concern was over the treatment of the Ray Harryhausen stop motion animated creatures which would no doubt be turned into crappy CGI. However, the rumor of who they have offered the project too stops me worrying about this completely.

The word is Sam Raimi has been offered the gig.

This is the guy remember who has a terrific respect for Harryhausen and his Army of Darkness could almost be seen as a great homage to his work, with the stop motion skeletons etc. If anyone was to treat this material with respect it would have to be him.

Warners and Legendary Pictures are keeping quiet over this news but I would go geek crazy if it turned out to be true.

4 Comments »

Matt, if you think Sam would feature anything remotely stop motion in this remake then prepare to be sorely dissapointed. Stop motion animation was great in it’s day and I love the original movie, but I would love to see an updated version with either Weta or ILM working on this project. After ILM’s amazing work on transformers I really hope they get the gig. Anyway going back to what I was saying, stop motion was great back then, but it would look awful now.

Comment by Tino | August 3, 2007

If it’s being made more realistic - how about they remake the film but don’t get the mythology wrong! Perseus had flying sandals in the myth - that’d be hilarious and would overshadow any debate about how the effects are treated. (My view is that a remake is pointless, Harryhausen was awesome and can’t be surpassed!)

Comment by Michael Edwards | August 3, 2007

Raimi is a film god…Let him do whatever the fuck he likes, It’ll be good.

Comment by The Glove | August 3, 2007

A large number of Ray Harryhausen fans and stop motion film makers have been upset at the idea of Mr.Harryhausen’s work being disrespected by being done over in CGI. When asked about this some time ago, Mr.Harryhausen expressed that he disapproved of that being done. We have no idea what the plans are for the effects but feel that the odds of them being done in stop motion are all but zero.

It has been reported the Ray H. has been asked to be involved with the Titans remake which is encouraging yet, still not any real sign that the remake will honor the mans’ work. Our guess is that he is being asked to be a consultant for the express purpose of getting his NAME on the credits only.

One of our members was good enough to create a video expressing our combined objection to the likely replacement of his work in a way that we know will not honor either the man nor his art. We have made an effort to make sure that video is highly ranked on a Google search and it calls not only for the attention of Legendary Pictures but also urges fans of the original to write a letter expressing the same to the Legendary Pictures management. that video can be found at the following link…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPe-M6E8nbk

Please leave a comment there in support of the Ray Harryhausen and the art of stop motion animation

Comment by Ron Cole | July 18, 2008

The OWF Team