Sam Raimi
Often considered one of Hollywood's most creative, exciting and intelligent filmmakers, film director/producer/writer/actor Samuel Marshall Raimi first came to the attention of film fans with the classic cult-horror, low-budget film The Evil Dead in 1981. He is also known for directing the blockbuster Spider-Man films in 2002 and 2004. He is also the only director/writer to have five video games evolve from his works.
Raimi was born on October 23, 1959 in Royal Oak, Michigan to a conservative Polish-Jewish family. His family’s original surname was Reingewertz (a German name) but was shortened to Raimi by his grandfather when the man immigrated to the United States.
There were five children in his family, and Raimi was the second youngest. In 1968 he lost his eldest sibling in a swimming accident on a trip to . His brother, Sander, was only 15.
Raimi has had a life-long love of the cinema. Before he was ten years old he was already making movies with an 8mm camera. He is also a devoted fan of The Three Stooges and much of his work during his teens was slapstick comedy that resembled classic shorts.
Raimi went to Michigan State University where he majored in English. While in college he teamed up with his brother’s roommate, Robert Tapert to create The Evil Dead in 1981. The movie didn’t do catch the interest of United States distributors, so Raimi decided to take it to Europe where it was more warmly received. When US distributors noticed that the movie was getting good ticket sales in Europe , they showed renewed interest and the movie was eventually released in the States where it did very well. In 1985 Raimi directed another movie, a live-action comic book type of film called Crimewave. The movie was not successful, but in 1987 Raimi made a comeback with Evil Dead II. It was a racier, more humorous version of the original and did even better in the box office. Raimi created his own superhero for the 1990 movie, Darkman, another comic book-style movie. Although he received his biggest budget to date to shoot the film, it was only moderately successful. In 1993 Raimi was able to secure funding for his third chapter of his Evil Dead movies, called Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness. The budget for the final chapter of the trilogy was estimated to be around $11 million, significantly higher than the $350,000 budget Raimi had for the first chapter. At the box office, Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness wasn’t very successful, only grossing $11,501,093. Throughout the 1990s Raimi moved to directing other genres besides horror. In 1995 he directed Gene Hackman and Sharon Stone in the sexy Western The Quick and the Dead. Three years later he directed the crime thriller A Simple Plan starring Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thorton. In 1999 he directed the baseball film For Love of the Game featuring Kevin Costner.
In 2002 Raimi directed the big-budget film about comic book superhero Spider-Man which gave him a chance to demonstrate his dynamic visual style with kinetic, wild camera movements. The movie was a massive success as was the sequel, Spider-Man 2 in 2004. Both films starred Tobey MacGuire, Kirsten Dunst, Willem Dafoe and James Franco.
Most of Raimi’s movies include a trademark yellow 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 nicknamed “The Classic” and a whisky bottle of Maker’s Mark. The majority of his movies also have shots of smoke or fog in the first few minutes.
Besides directing movies Raimi has worked in television producing series like Xena: Warrior Princess, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, and Jack of All Trades.
Raimi married Gillian Greene in 1993 and the couple have four children. | 
