Since we’ve known for a while that Sam Raimi won’t be returning to the world of Spider-Man, news of the director’s alternate projects come as pleasant surprises.  We already know that Raimi will be directing Oz, the Great and Powerful, a prequel of sorts of The Wizard of Oz, for Disney next.  After that, apparently Raimi will helm an update on the Wyatt Earp story, this time told in a futuristic sci-fi environment.  Heat Vision describes it as “set in a future in which [Earp] takes on outlaws in a ravaged society where the only boomtown left is Las Vegas.”  I would assume the story would include the traditional gunfight at the O.K. Corral and other standard events from the life of Earp, only changed to suit the new genre.  Titled Earp: Saints for Sinners, the movie will be adapted from a graphic novel written by M. Zachary Sherman and Matt Cirulnick and distributed by Dreamworks.

I’m really looking forward to Raimi’s future projects and this one is no exception.  Left to his own devices, we’ve seen what he’s capable of doing (Drag Me to Hell being the latest example).  He hasn’t tackled full-blown sci-fi before and I think there’s plenty of potential for Raimi to apply his style to the genre.  Of course, he has tackled the western before with The Quick and the Dead in 1995.  The combination of those genres will probably remind many of Serenity or even Star Wars to an extent, which is fine by me. Of course, right now there’s no telling how long we’ll have to wait for this one, so let’s not get too ahead of ourselves attempting to imagine what the film will be like. Oz, the Great and Powerful comes next for Raimi, so fans will have that to enjoy until Earp: Saints for Sinners materializes further.

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