"Fresh off the success of The Evil Dead and its sequel, he sought to bring the crime-fighting pulp hero to the big screen, only for Universal Studios to refuse to part with the rights. "I met with them, but they didn't like my views at all," he said. The director then revisited a short story he'd written, about a man who could alter his face to impersonate others. Denied a shot at adaptation, Raimi set out to deliver an original."
"The result was Darkman, a gripping yet goofy tale of rage, revenge, and a renewed chance at lost love, starring a pre-action hero Liam Neeson as a tortured scientist. Inspired by the Universal horror movies of the '30s, Darkman was imbued with the look and feel of a comic book, combining kinetic camerawork with images that burst across the screen."
"Released on this day in 1990, 12 years before Spider-Man, Darkman also serves as a superhero origin story, with much of the same pathos and struggle to reconcile one'ssense of self. Suffering major burns after a lab explosion rigged by a corrupt crime boss (Larry Drake), Dr. Peyton Westlake (Neeson) is taken to a hospital, where, to spare him unbearable pain, doctors subject him to an experimental procedure. The side-effects? Increased strength and uncontrollable rage."
Sam Raimi initially sought to adapt The Shadow but could not secure the rights, so he created Darkman based on an earlier short story about a man who can alter his face. Darkman stars Liam Neeson as Dr. Peyton Westlake, a scientist disfigured by a crime boss’s rigged lab explosion and subjected to an experimental procedure that increases strength and triggers uncontrollable rage. Inspired by 1930s Universal horror, the film blends comic-book aesthetics with kinetic camerawork. Darkman performed poorly in previews but achieved critical and commercial success, spawned two sequels without Raimi or Neeson, and influenced Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy.
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