RAIMI RETURNS TO ROOTS WITH 'DRAG ME TO HELL' (VAR)

By Nancy Vialatte

Sam Raimi is returning to his genre roots with "Drag Me to Hell," a supernatural thriller he wrote with his brother, Ivan Raimi. Variety reports that the morality tale about the unwitting recipient of a supernatural curse will go into production early next year.

Ghost House, a joint venture formed by Raimi and Rob Tapert several years ago with Mandate Pictures, will finance.

Raimi and Tapert will produce with Grant Curtis, and Josh Donen will exec produce with Mandate's Nathan Kahane and Joe Drake.

Tapert said the Raimis wrote the script well before the formation of Ghost House. Originally written under the title "The Curse," it was completed right after the siblings collaborated on 1992's "Army of Darkness," which Sam Raimi directed.

"Sam calls it a 'spook-a-blast,' a wild ride with all the chills and spills that 'Evil Dead' delivered, without relying on the excessive violence of that film," Tapert told Variety. "When one has done three very expensive movies, they get used to eating caviar. Sam will have to ponder what it means to come down from the mountaintop for a moment," he continued referring to the �Spider-Man� series.

"Drag Me to Hell" is the first Raimi-directed project for Ghost House, which has done very well in the genre game with the Sarah Michelle Gellar starrer "The Grudge," "The Grudge 2," the Stephen T. Kay-directed "Boogeyman," the Oxide and Danny Pang-directed "The Messenger" and, most recently, the David Slade-helmed "30 Days of Night." Ghost House is prepping a remake of "Evil Dead," the 1981 horror film that was Raimi's first breakout hit as a director.

After "Drag Me to Hell," Raimi is expected to take the helm of "The Hobbit" films for New Line and MGM now that Peter Jackson has made it clear he won't direct.

"The appeal to Sam on 'Drag Me to Hell' was returning to what he had once done and loved doing, which was entertaining a very specific group of fans and providing a roller coaster ride for them," Tapert said. "He doesn't have the enormous pressure here that goes with handling a hundreds of millions of dollars franchise."