Film & TV
Sam Raimi
born 1959 · film director, producer, screenwriter
Royal Oak-born director who launched The Evil Dead from metro Detroit, premiered it at the Redford Theatre and later shot Crimewave on Detroit streets.
- Born
Royal Oak, Michigan
age 66- Birth name
- Samuel M. Raimi
- Detroit years
- 1959–1984, 2011
- Field
- Film & TV
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Sam Raimi was born in Royal Oak on October 23, 1959, and grew up in Detroit's northern suburbs shooting Super 8 films with friends. At Wylie E. Groves High School in Beverly Hills he teamed up with Bruce Campbell, and through his brother Ivan he met Rob Tapert; in 1979 the three formed Renaissance Pictures. Their short Within the Woods had its first public show at the Punch and Judy Theater in Grosse Pointe Farms in 1979, as a calling card for investors. The feature it led to, The Evil Dead, was shot mostly in rural Tennessee but first screened on October 15, 1981, at Detroit's Redford Theatre, with rented ambulances outside and an organist rising from the pit. Raimi then made Crimewave (1985), co-written with the Coen brothers, on Detroit locations including the closed Tuller Hotel, the Lodge Freeway and the MacArthur Bridge to Belle Isle. He returned in 2011 to film Oz the Great and Powerful at a new studio in Pontiac.
Highlights
- Evil Dead trilogy (1981–1992) grew out of a metro Detroit friendship
- Directed the Spider-Man trilogy (2002–2007)
- Co-founded Renaissance Pictures (1979) and Ghost House Pictures (2002)
- Produced Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess
- Produced the Detroit-set thriller Don't Breathe (2016)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 6
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · mid-1970s
Wylie E. Groves High School
Raimi's high school, where he and Bruce Campbell became friends in a 1975 drama class and started making films together.
Related place · 1979
Punch and Judy Theater
Closed
The short Within the Woods had its first public screening here in 1979, before a Rocky Horror show. The building was converted into offices in 1988.
Related place · 1981
Redford Theatre
The Evil Dead (then titled The Book of the Dead) had its first screening here on October 15, 1981; the film still returns for Halloween shows.
Worked here · 1983–1984
Tuller Hotel
Demolished
The shuttered hotel became the film's 'Cafe Rialto' during the Crimewave shoot; it was later torn down.
Worked here · 1983–1984
MacArthur Bridge (to Belle Isle)
The Crimewave car chase along the Lodge Freeway ends on this bridge to Belle Isle.
Worked here · 2011
Michigan Motion Picture Studios (former Raleigh Michigan Studios)
Closed
Raimi shot Oz the Great and Powerful here. The film studio later closed and the complex became the headquarters of Williams International.