Universal, however, wanted a PG-13 rating, so Raimi made a few cuts and was still stuck with the MPAA's R rating.

Raimi occasionally appears on-screen in his own movies, usually in similar fashion to the cameos made by his idol Alfred Hitchcock: A silhouette behind a projection screen ( Spider-Man, in the wrestling scene ), a passer-by with some kind of physical interaction with the film's protagonist ( Spider-Man 2, as the student whose bookbag hits Peter Parker in the back of the head ), a hitchhiking fisherman accompanied by Robert Tapert in The Evil Dead.

Although he didn't direct the movie, he made a cameo appearance as a doctor in the Sam Raimi movie Darkman, starring Liam Neeson ( Landis is one of the doctors examining Neeson after he was burned in the building.

Plans fell through, although it would eventually be made as a Sam Raimi film for Columbia Pictures.

* Frances McDormand as Julie Hastings: Raimi had wanted to work with Frances McDormand but the studio resisted this notion and almost cast Julia Roberts before Pretty Woman made her a star.

Raimi was also inspired by the Universal horror films of the 1930s and 1940s because " they made me fear the hideous nature of the hero and at the same time drew me to him.

Cameos are made by William Lustig, and Sam Raimi.

In his film and television projects, Raimi's brother Ted Raimi and his friend Bruce Campbell often appear in on-screen roles, though these appearances are often just cameos.

The Coens co-wrote Crimewave and The Hudsucker Proxy with Raimi in the mid-1980s ( though Hudsucker was not produced for almost a decade ).

* Sam Raimi as Hudsucker brainstormer

Together, they began writing the script for The Hudsucker Proxy in 1981, and continued during the filming of Crimewave ( 1985 ), and post-production on Blood Simple ( 1985 ), in which Joel and Ethan Coen shared a house with Raimi.

The Hudsucker Proxy was revived and the Coens and Raimi performed a brief rewrite.

Director and script writer Sam Raimi drew from a variety of sources, including literature with A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels and films like The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, and The Three Stooges.

LoDuca sat down with Raimi and they went over the entire film, scene by scene.

Raimi ran into further troubles with the Motion Picture Association of America over the film's rating.

A few years later, Campbell and Raimi got together with family and friends and began work on The Evil Dead.

On July 13, 2011, Campbell announced that he would be producing the remake of The Evil Dead along with Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert.

He later recorded an audio play adaptation of Make Love with fellow Michigan actors including longtime collaborator Ted Raimi.

Raimi and Co. managed to secure a shooting budget of less than $ 375, 000 and with the cast and crew, headed for a wilderness cabin in the woods near Morristown, Tennessee.

The limited edition Blu-ray with a newly restored picture was released on August 31, 2010 in the United States, featuring two discs with audio commentary with writer / director Sam Raimi, producer Robert Tapert and star Bruce Campbell.

* Ted Raimi as Possessed Henrietta, Annie's possessed mother who uses her memories to lure her in order to kill her and everybody else, but gets killed when Ash stabs her through the chest with his chainsaw.

Raimi contacted his old friend Scott Spiegel, who had collaborated with Campbell and others on the Super-8 films they had produced during their childhood in Michigan.

Spiegel and Raimi wrote most of the film in their house in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California, where they were living with the aforementioned Coen brothers, as well as actors Frances McDormand, Kathy Bates, and Holly Hunter ( Hunter was the primary inspiration for the Bobby Jo character ).

Raimi became extremely overheated, to the point that his costume was literally filled with liters of sweat ; special effects artist Gregory Nicotero describes pouring the fluid into several Dixie cups so as to get it out of the costume.

At the film's wrap party, the crew held a talent contest, where Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell sang The Byrds ' " Eight Miles High ", with Nicotero on guitar.

In a recent interview with PC Magazine, Valve CEO and co-founder Gabe Newell said that they wanted to make a Half-Life feature film themselves, rather than hand it off to a big-name director like Sam Raimi, and that their recent Team Fortress 2 " Meet The Team " machinima shorts were experiments in doing just that.

Raimi became fascinated with making films when his father brought a movie camera home one day and he began to make Super 8 movies with childhood friend Bruce Campbell.

Raimi returned to the horror genre with the seminal Evil Dead II ( which added slapstick humor to the over the top horror, showcasing his love of the Three Stooges ).

Raimi achieved great critical and commercial success with the blockbuster Spider-Man ( 2002 ), which was adapted from the comic book series of the same name.

Raimi frequently collaborates with Joel and Ethan Coen, beginning when Joel was one of the editors of Evil Dead.

The Coen brothers gave Raimi advice on shooting in snow for A Simple Plan, based on their experiences with Fargo.

After the release of The Evil Dead, Raimi moved on to Crimewave, a cross between a crime film and a comedy produced by Raimi and Joel and Ethan Coen.

Prior to directing the Spider-Man films, Raimi lobbied to direct Batman Forever when Tim Burton was ousted from the director's chair, but was rejected in favor of Joel Schumacher, whose reputation at the time outshone Raimi's.

Sam Raimi, director and friend of the Coens, appears as the snickering gunman at the siege of the Sons of Erin social club, while Frances McDormand, Joel Coen's wife, appears as the Mayor's secretary.

The Coen brothers first met Sam Raimi when Joel Coen worked as an assistant editor on Raimi's The Evil Dead ( 1981 ).

He frequently invited director Frank Oz to play small parts in his movies, and others such as Roger Vadim, Paul Mazursky, Jim Henson, Jonathan Demme, and David Cronenberg in Into the Night ; Terry Gilliam, Joel Coen, Michael Apted in Spies Like Us ; Sam Raimi in Spies Like Us and Innocent Blood ; George Lucas in Beverly Hills Cop III ; Steven Spielberg in Blues Brothers ; Dario Argento in Innocent Blood ; and Costa-Gavras in The Stupids.

In 1985, McDormand, the Coen brothers, Holly Hunter, and director Sam Raimi shared a house in The Bronx.

Like Raimi, he is an expert on biological and chemical threats.

Army of Darkness, also titled Bruce Campbell vs Army of Darkness, Evil Dead III: Army of Darkness or just Evil Dead III, is a 1992 American comedy horror film directed by Sam Raimi.

The film was written by Sam Raimi and his brother Ivan, produced by Robert Tapert, and stars Bruce Campbell and Embeth Davidtz.

Later, Ash is at the S-Mart store telling a male co-worker ( Ted Raimi ) all about his adventure back in time, and how he could have been king.

This was used after Sam Raimi was unable to use his original title " The Medieval Dead.

Initially, Raimi invited Scott Spiegel to co-write Army of Darkness because he had done a good job on Evil Dead II, but he was busy on rewrites for the Clint Eastwood film The Rookie.

After the good experience of writing the screenplay for a film called Easy Wheels, Sam and his brother Ivan Raimi decided to co-write the film together.

Raimi says that Ivan " has a good sense of character " and that he brought more comedy into the script.

Campbell and Tapert would read the script drafts, give Raimi their notes and he would decide which suggestions to keep and which ones to discard.

However, the film's ambitious scope and its extensive effects work forced Campbell, Raimi and producer Rob Tapert to put up $ 1 million of their collective salaries to shoot a new ending and not film a scene where a possessed woman pushes down some giant pillars.

Visual effects supervisor William Mesa showed Raimi storyboards he had from Victor Fleming's film Joan of Arc that depicted huge battle scenes and he picked out 25 shots to use in Army of Darkness.

To achieve this effect, Raimi used 60-foot-tall Scotchlite front-projection screens, miniatures and background plates.

While Dino De Laurentiis gave Raimi and his crew freedom to shoot the movie the way they wanted, Universal Pictures took over during post-production.

In addition, Raimi needed $ 3 million to finish his movie, but Universal was not willing to give him the money and delayed its release because they were upset that De Laurentiis would not give them the rights to the Hannibal Lecter character so that they could film a sequel to Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs.

* The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi, John Kenneth Muir.

After meeting Sam Raimi in Wylie E. Groves High School, the two became very good friends and started making movies together.

Campbell and Raimi collaborated on a 30-minute Super 8 version of the first Evil Dead film, titled Within the Woods, which was initially used to attract investors.

Raimi wrote, directed and edited, while fellow Michigander Rob Tapert was producer.

The show was directed by Eric Gruendemann, and was produced by various people, including Sam Raimi.