The movie that sent Sam Raimi into Hollywood exile: “I had to refresh myself”
Certain film figures mean completely different things to different generations, like Sam Raimi, who, for horror nerds who came of age in the 1980s, is held up as the twisted genius behind the Evil Dead franchise, director of the first three films that entertained and appalled viewers in equal measure.
On the other hand, as a noughties kid, Rami’s known for his three Spider-Man films with Tobey Maguire in the famous red suit, playing a key role in millions of childhoods and helping launch the superhero revolution that would sweep the world over the next few decades.
However, one film that no era remembers Raimi for is the 2013 fantasy adventure Oz the Great and Powerful, which serves as a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, with much less singing, and James Franco playing a conman who, after an incident involving a hot air balloon and a tornado, winds up in the Land of Oz. He eventually becomes the titular wizard and fends off Mila Kunis’ Wicked Witch of the West, who’s called Theodora for some reason, serving to complicate things further for the film’s reception.
In no uncertain terms, the movie was simply bad, an utterly lacklustre family flop that does absolutely nothing with its source material or its incredibly impressive cast. While it did perform well at the box office, it was left out in the cold by the critics, and also cost an eye-watering $215million, making it among the most expensive movies ever made.
After the disappointing results of Oz, Raimi was forced to take a long, hard look at himself and wouldn’t make another movie for the better part of a decade, wherein, as he explained to SlashFilm, he put a lot of time and effort into his next step.
“I had to refresh myself, I didn’t want to repeat myself,” he said, “I didn’t want to do something that was stale. I felt like I had to experience the world again, [including] filmmaking, from these young filmmakers that I was producing. I allowed myself to be inspired by them.”
He continued about his life, noting, “I raised my kids, learned from that experience, and spent a lot of time in the garden thinking. And when this call finally came in, I thought, ‘I’m refreshed. I’m hungry. I’ve got a lot of new experiences. I’m ready to go back to directing’.”
After being attached to a number of projects that went nowhere and overseeing the next two Evil Dead films as a producer, Raimi finally returned to the director’s chair in a big way. Helming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness for Marvel, taking the franchise to some of its darkest places yet, with an even more ludicrous budget, the man was able to craft one of the best-received MCU films of the post-Endgame era.
Raimi has always been hard on himself, but in the wake of Oz the Great and Powerful, he was right to evaluate his career. He had seriously lost his way and made something with none of his usual flair, and while his fans might have been disappointed that he took so much time off, you can’t say that he didn’t come back stronger than ever.
