Sam Raimi has directed everything from superheroes to the living dead with some romantic baseball players in between. But, in his career, Raimi has never made a movie about war but he may get the chance very soon. Deadline reports that Raimi is teaming with THE FIGHTER screenwriters Paul Tamasy and Eric Johnson to adapt Jake Tapper’s book The Outpost: An Untold Story Of American Valor.
While Raimi is not dead-set on directing yet, he is leaning towards helming it at this point. At the very least, Raimi will produce alongside long-time partner Rob Tapert. Following in the footsteps of the recent trend of modern war films including THE HURT LOCKER, ZERO DARK THIRTY, and LONE SURVIVOR, THE OUTPOST would venture to tell a gritty and violent episode from the recent events in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The focus of The Outpost is the defense of a remote U.S. camp in Eastern Afghanistan by 53 American soldiers as it was overrun by up to 400 Taliban fighters. The intense and deadly day-long clash resulted in multiple citations including Medals of Honor to two recipients, the first time America’s highest military award has been given to two living soldiers for the same battle since
While it may seem inappropriate to say that Sam Raimi would make a kick-ass war movie, I do think his visual style would meld well with telling such a highly visual story. There is a delicate balance in making war movies and if you sway too far one way or the other, your movie will either seem like a balls out action movie or an overly political propaganda film. With the film chronicling such recent events, Raimi would need to tread lightly on the balance he strikes.
Raimi did make the following statement about the project.
“The Outpost is an epic story of bravery, courage, and sacrifice of our men in uniform, and is absolutely a picture meant for the big screen. I’m honored to be a part of it.”
Raimi has worked outside the realm of realistic filmmaking for so long(his last film that did not feature a supernatural element was 1999’s FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME), THE OUTPOST may be his ticket to proving to Hollywood that he is not just a tentpole/popcorn movie director. Here’s hoping he sticks with this one.