Sam Raimi Net Worth

Sam Raimi's Quotes

• I love the Spider-Man character. And that's what's at the heart of it. That's why I really love it. But there's another fun thing that I never had before where you make your movie and a lot of people see it and they seem to like it. So it's like oh my god, I've always been the nerd, lame ass guy on the side, but I made something that a lot of people like. I know that won't last for long, and I'm obviously riding the Spider-Man thing. He's a popular character for 40 years. So anyone who makes a Spider-Man movie gets to make a popular movie. But it's fun to be popular, even if it's a brief, lame thing, and even though I know it's not important. I can't help it. It's really fun and I know how quickly things turn in Hollywood.
• Audiences really don't go see a lot of movies - except in L.A. and New York I think, and maybe one or two other cities, maybe Chicago - where there are foreign-born, foreign-speaking actors. That's just the culture we are.
• And it was great making movies in college because if you made the right movie you'd get this cigar box full of $5 and $1 bills, you'd have like 500 bucks after a weekend. And it was like oh my god, we're rich! We've got to make another picture. But if the movie bombed, you spent a lot of money on the movie, on the ads at the State news, renting the theater, lugging these heavy speakers, the projector bulbs, [and] it was a washout, you realize this movie is not making money. I'm broke. I've got to make the movie that they want to see. So it was a great learning experience.
• And I do think there's a new crop of American filmmakers coming. And they're in high school right now. They're in Mrs. Dawson's English class! They've got new tools, they've got computers and the video cameras, which are the equivalent of our super-8mm training ground. It's even better because they can shoot for free. We had to gather up like four bucks, five bucks to buy a roll of film, another three bucks to process it, and that was a very limiting [thing], in high school you've gotta rake leaves for three hours to shoot a roll of film! So these new filmmakers have these advanced editing tools with the incredible manipulation of imagery available on a standard computer."
• I think if people love the source material, and that's really whey they're making the movie, then that's a natural outcome. That the things we all love, and work with the creators of the movie to save the things that were so effective. I think it's situations where people don't love the material, they just say, oh that was a big hit, it could be a big hit here. It's just generalizing. Things got lost if you don't understand why people like a thing. When you love something, it's easy to say, 'That's my son, cut out his heart? No, he needs the heart.' It's harder when you don't love the thing yourself.

Interesting Facts about Sam Raimi

1. Attended Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, as an English major.
2. Joel Coen and Ethan Coen use many of Raimi's trademark camera movements in their films.
3. Middle brother of Ted Raimi and Ivan Raimi.
4. During the mid-1980s, Raimi used to live in an apartment with actor Bruce Campbell, writer/director Scott Spiegel, writer/director Joel Coen, writer/producer Ethan Coen and actresses Holly Hunter, Frances McDormand and Kathy Bates.
5. His wife, Gillian Greene, is the daughter of Lorne Greene and Nancy Deale.
6. Is an avid fan of "Spider-Man" comic books.
7. Friends with director John Landis. Had cameos in Landis' Spies Like Us (1985) and Innocent Blood (1992), while Landis did cameos in Raimi's Darkman (1990) and Spider-Man 2 (2004). Both also appeared in Stephen King's ABC mini-series The Stand (1994).
8. Many years before landing the role of director on the Spider-Man movies, Raimi planned to create a film based on Marvel's comic interpretation of "The Mighty Thor" with Stan Lee. While the movie never materialized, Lee, co-creator of Spider-Man and many other Marvel characters, became good friends with Raimi and later appeared in cameos on the Spidey flicks.
9. In 2004, both he and the Coen brothers cast J.K. Simmons and Bruce Campbell in one of their movies; Spider-Man 2 (2004) and The Ladykillers (2004).
10. His oldest brother, Sander, died in a swimming pool accident at the age of 15 while on a scholarship trip to Israel. Sander used to perform magic tricks for Sam and his friends; when he died, Sam learned to perform the tricks himself.
11. His family name was changed from the German name Reingewertz.
12. Featured on Premiere's Power 50 list from 2003 to 2006 with the following rankings: #37 in 2003, #48 in 2004, #33 in 2005, and #23 in 2006.
13. He wanted to adapt and direct The Shadow (1994), but was denied the rights to do it. Instead, he created his own superhero with his film Darkman (1990).
14. His breakthrough project, the low-budget horror cult film The Evil Dead (1981), had an estimated budget of $350,000. Twenty-five years later he helmed a production with an estimated budget at 1,000 times the cost of that film, Spider-Man 3 (2007), with an estimated production cost of $350,000,000, making it the most expensive motion picture produced up to that time.
15. Graduate of Birmingham Groves High School in Birmingham, Michigan in 1977.
16. Attended high school and remains close friends with producer John Cameron and actor Bruce Campbell.
17. Children: Lorne Raimi, Henry Raimi, Emma Raimi, Dashiell William Schooley Raimi.
18. At college he ran a film society, but instead of renting films to exhibit he and his friends created their own feature-length movies on Super 8 and showed them to the campus audiences instead.
19. Frequently employs Bob Murawski as his editor.
20. Over his years as a director, Raimi's 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 (originally bought by Raimi's father for the family when Sam was 14) has "played" Ash's car in the Evil Dead movies, Uncle Ben and Aunt May's car in the Spider-Man movies, Annie's car in The Gift (2000), and Mrs. Ganoush's car in Drag Me to Hell (2009), and has made cameos in nearly all of his other movies.