Evil Dead legend and horror master Sam Raimi is set to direct and produce Send Help, a desert island-set horror thriller for 20th Century Studios.
Deadline, who reported the news exclusively earlier today, elaborated that the project is not yet officially greenlit by the studio, but is described as:
…a two-hander set on an island with both comedic and thriller elements. The story is said to fall somewhere between Rob Reiner’s Stephen King adaptation Misery and Robert Zemeckis’ classic Castaway.
Send Help is based on an original script by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (Freddy vs. Jason, 2009‘s Friday the 13th ), and produced by Raimi and Zainab Azizi under Raimi Productions.
Deadline also reveal the film is set to get a theatrical release, although so far have no further details on when this might be.
Send Help will be Raimi’s first time back in the directorial chair for a horror movie since 2009’s Drag Me to Hell (his last directed feature was 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), but that doesn’t mean he’s been absent from the game – he was of course executive producer on Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise, and producer on this year’s genre-bending Boy Kills World.
Raimi also took a producer role on Netflix’s upcoming thriller Don’t Move and, excitingly, the horror thriller Locked, starring Bill Skarsgård and Anthony Hopkins, which Deadline tells us is currently in post. There’s also the as-of-now unnamed project between Raimi and Terrifier’s Damien Leone to look forward to too.
While we’d obviously be sat for anything Raimi puts his name to, a horror version of Castaway sounds like the type of hilarious, twisted genius only he can bring to life. Needless to say, we’ll be following Send Help very closely, and will bring you updates as they come in.
