Darkman
| Darkman | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Sam Raimi |
| Written by | Sam Raimi (story & screenplay), Chuck Pfarrer, Ivan Raimi, Daniel Goldin, Joshua Goldin (screenplay) |
| Produced by | Robert G. Tapert |
| Starring | Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand, Larry Drake |
| Cinematography | Bill Pope |
| Music by | Danny Elfman |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release dates | August 24, 1990 |
Running time | 96 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $16,000,000 |
Darkman is the title of a 1990 film directed by Sam Raimi, starring Liam Neeson.
Darkman
Template:Spoiler Scientist Peyton Westlake (played by Liam Neeson) is developing a new type of synthetic skin to aid burn victims. He is continually frustrated with the results because the skin rapidly disintegrates after being exposed to light for 99 minutes, yet remains intact in darkness. Despite his devotion to the project, he cannot get past this limitation. His girlfriend, attorney Julie Hastings (played by Frances McDormand), comes upon an incriminating document showing that corrupt developer Louis Strack Jr. (played by Colin Friels) and mobster Robert G. Durant (played by Larry Drake) have given bribes to members of the zoning commission in order to go on with their planned project. In retaliation, Durant and his minions attack and injure Westlake, retrieve the document that was left there, then blow up his lab. The blast throws Westlake clear of the lab; he survives but is hideously burned. He is brought to a hospital and subjected to a radical treatment in which the nerves to the pain centers of his brain are destroyed. Removing this sensory input gives him increased strength due to adrenal overload and keeps his injuries from incapacitating him, but it also destabilizes his moods and mental state. He escapes the hospital and sets out to get revenge on Strack and Durant, and to try to re-establish his relationship with Hastings. To hide his scarring and blend into crowds, Westlake rebuilds enough of his equipment to make his synthetic skin, but is still unable to overcome the 99-minute window of integrity. Thus, he can only appear as himself (or later as others, whose features he is able to duplicate) in daylight in public briefly, and otherwise wears bandages and a trenchcoat in his identity as "Darkman." He is able to make masks in advance and store them for long periods by keeping them from light sources. He takes the opportunity to observe important people, such as the henchmen of his enemies, so he can masquerade as them.
Origins
For a long time, Raimi had been interested in adapting a comic book into a movie. He had pursued and failed to secure the rights to both The Shadow and Batman and decided to create his own. According to Bill Warren’s book, The Evil Dead Companion, the initial idea Raimi had for Darkman was of a man who could change his face. He has said that he drew inspiration from such films as The Phantom of the Opera, The Elephant Man, Batman and The Shadow. He pitched this idea to Universal Studios and entered into a production deal with them.
Raimi originally wrote a short story, entitled "The Darkman," and from this developed it into a 40-page treatment. It was at this point that, according to Raimi in Warren’s book, "it became the story of a man who had lost his face and had to take on other faces, a man who battled criminals using this power." It also became more of a tragic love story in the tradition of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
The more the director worked on it, the more Darkman became a crimefighting figure, "a non-superpowered man who, here, is a hideous thing who fights crime. As he became that hideous thing, it became more like The Phantom of the Opera, the creature who wants the girl but who was too much of a beast to have her," Raimi said in Warren’s book. The process of developing his treatment into a screenplay was difficult with Raimi bringing his brother, Ivan (a doctor), in to make sure that the medical aspects were authentic. After him, ex-Navy SEAL Chuck Pfarrer wrote a draft.
As Raimi and his producing partner Robert Tapert progressed through various drafts, they realized that there was a potential franchise on their hands. Universal brought in screenwriting brothers Daniel and Joshua Goldin to work on the script. According to Daniel, as quoted in Warren’s book, they were presented with various drafts and "lots of little story documents. There was just material everywhere; drafts seemed to go in many directions." Goldin said in John Kenneth Muir’s book, The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi, that they "spent a lot of time talking and pulling together a way of making the story work. I think that mostly we talked in terms of the nuts and bolts of the story."
Early on, Gary Oldman was considered to play Darkman before Liam Neeson was cast. The filmmaker had wanted to work with Frances McDormand but the studio resisted this notion and almost cast Julia Roberts before Pretty Woman made her a star. At one point, they wanted Demi Moore for the role. Raimi even tested Bridget Fonda but felt that she was too young for Neeson.
Working with Universal meant a significant increase in budget for Raimi. He was given $16 million to work with, including a longer schedule and much more effects work. Look-wise, the filmmaker was interested in paying homage to Universal horror films of the 1930s. Production designer Randy Ser remarked in Muir's book, "if you look at Darkman's lab that he moves into, which is an old warehouse, what was on my mind was Dr. Frankenstein. There were a number of references visually to what we were thinking about in regards to those films."
Raimi and Tapert ran into conflicts with the studio during post-production. Tapert remembers, "the experience on Darkman was very difficult for Sam and me; it isn’t the picture we thought it should be, based on the footage we shot and all that. The studio got nervous about some kind of wild things in it, and made us take them out, which was unfortunate."
Critical reaction
Los Angeles Times film critic Michael Wilmington felt that Darkman was the only comic book movie at the time "that successfully captures the graphic look, rhythm and style of the superhero books." Terrence Rafferty of The New Yorker said, "Raimi works from inside the cheerfully violent adolescent-male sensibility of superhero comics, as if there were no higher style for a filmmaker to aspire to, and the absence of condescension is refreshing." However, Richard Corliss in Time said that Raimi wasn’t "effective with actors" and People’s Ralph Novak called Darkman, a "loud, sadistic, stupidly written, wretchedly acted film." Darkman was singled out for notice by comic-book writer Peter David in the Comics Buyers Guide as the film most conformant with superhero origin story formula elements at the time (narrowly beating out Robocop).
It received "Two Thumbs Up" on Siskel & Ebert
MSN Movies ranks Darkman as the sixth best superhero movie to date, behind X-Men, Batman Begins, Spider-Man, The Incredibles, and Superman II.[citation needed]
Darkman holds a 74 percent "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a 6.1 rating at the Internet Movie Database with 8,401 votes.
Box office
In its opening weekend, the film grossed a total of $8,054,860 in 1,786 theaters. As of December 7 2006, the film has grossed a total of $48,878,502 worldwide.
Darkman II: The Return of Durant
In this 1994 direct-to-video sequel, Scientist Peyton Westlake has a totally new face (now played by Arnold Vosloo) and continues to work on his synthetic skin, whilst fighting crime as Darkman.
Despite looking as if he had been killed in the first movie, Robert G. Durant survived and was in fact comatose in the time since the helicopter explosion that occurred during the first film's climax, and returns to take over organised crime in the city.
Trying to perfect his synthetic skin with the assistance of Dr. David Brinkman (Jesse Collins), Durant turns up, and in a scene reminiscent of the first movie, Brinkman is tortured and killed, leaving the work in ruins. It is up to Darkman once again to disguise himself as members of Durant's gang and he ultimately manages to destroy them from within.
When Westlake is infiltrating Durant's gang, reporter Jill Randall discovers that Peyton Westlake is still alive while trying to prove that the facts and actions of Durant's gang show that Durant is back in business.
Darkman III: Die, Darkman, Die
In the second direct-to-video Darkman sequel, released in 1996, Peyton Westlake (again played by Vosloo) steals a crate of money from drug lord Peter Rooker (Jeff Fahey) to continue his research. Rooker is determined to find out how Darkman has his superior strength, and enlists the aid of Dr. Bridget Thorne (Darlanne Fluegel), a new character retroactively put into Darkman's origin as one of the doctors who first treated Westlake's body after he was burnt in the first movie. Obtaining a sample of Westlake's adrenaline, Dr. Thorne develops a designer steroid which enhances a person's strength at the cost of their mental agility.
Learning of what has happened, Darkman plans his revenge against Rooker by impersonating him while in the company of his family and colleagues in order to bring him down. It is up to Darkman to destroy the formula to the steroid and seek vengeance against Rooker, but not at the cost of Rooker's wife and child.
This film shifts some of the focus from action to drama, during Peyton's scenes with Rooker's wife (played by Roxann Biggs-Dawson), and his child, reminding him of how life could have been for him.
Darkman III: Die, Darkman, Die was originally intended to be the first sequel to the original Darkman, but when Larry Drake became available to reprise his role of Durant, this entry was moved back until Darkman II: The Return of Durant had been finished and released.
Unaired television pilot
Universal Television financed a 30-minute television pilot based on Darkman, which was made sometime in 1992. The pilot retold the origin of the character (with some alterations) and introduced several new characters. Christopher Bowen starred in the role of Peyton Westlake/Darkman and Larry Drake reprised his role of Robert G. Durant. As in the film, Westlake is attacked and left for dead by Durant and his gang. Template:Endspoiler
Darkman Trivia
- Sam Raimi's long time friends (Coen Brothers) make a brief appearance in Darkman. They are driving a 1973 Oldsmobile, dubbed "the Classic", which has appeared in most of Raimi's films.
- During a scene in the movie Darkman, Peyton/Darkman cries out, "Julie!" This is actually voiced by Bruce Campbell, good friend of director Sam Raimi and from Evil Dead/Army of Darkness fame. He also appears at the end of the movie as Darkman's last incarnation, taking one last look at his girlfriend before disappearing into a crowd.
- Ted Raimi, the director's brother, played Durant's bespectacled henchman Rick, who meets with an untimely end by way of an open manhole and a semi. In an interview, Raimi claimed that he tried to make his character subtly homosexual.
- A sound bite from this film is mixed into the Velvet Acid Christ song Futile (Nazi Bastard).
- In one scene, there is a closeup of a pupil constricting in reaction to a large explosion. This same shot is referenced in the climax of Spider Man, when the Green Goblin hurls a Pumpkin Bomb that explodes point-blank in Spidey's face.
Darkman merchandising
Darkman has been the subject of two Marvel Comics series (one a movie adaptation, the other an original sequel), numerous novels, as well as computer and video games. Merchandising for the character all but disappeared for close to a decade until SOTA Toys obtained the rights to make a Darkman action figure. SOTA president Jerry Macaluso was interviewed by Dread Central:
"This leads to an interesting story on Darkman. Universal didn't know they owned the merchandise rights. It didn't show up on any of their merchandise sheets. I had to convince them to spend a little time and have their lawyers look into it. I knew at the time that film was made Sam (Raimi) didn't have the power to retain those rights so it HAD to be Universal even though they said they didn't have them. Turns out I was right and afterwards Darkman started to show up in all their catalogs of films available to license..."[1]
In 2005, SOTA produced two versions of their Darkman action figure (including interchangeable head and hands to allow the figure to be either bandaged or revealing his scarred visage), as well as a Darkman statue.
Dynamite Entertainment announced 2006 its agreement with Universal Studios Consumer Products Group to produce original comics based on Darkman, promising a showdown with another Sam Raimi character, which likely leads to Ash from Army of Darkness or even Xena: Warrior Princess, and eventually a bimonthly limited series entitled Darkman vs. Army of Darkness was pulished from August 2006 to March 2007. A regular solo series is expected to follow but Dynamite has stated they are waiting to see how the crossover fares first.