From the first moment that people started asking “Well if Peter Jackson isn’t going to direct The Hobbit, then who should?”, one of the main names that has always been batted around is Sam Raimi. Personally, I think it would be a pretty good fit and I’d be interested in seeing his rendition of Middle Earth.
Well, it looks like there is something to it. Entertainment Weekly just did an interview with Raimi, in which he says he’d do it if they officially ask him. Here’s the important part of the article:
“If Peter didn’t want to do it, and Bob (head of New Line) wanted me to do it — and they were both okay with me picking up the reins — that would be great. I love the book. It’s maybe a more kid-friendly story than the others.”
If it’s not going to be Jackson (which I’ve always said would be ideal if he did it… but screw him is he doesn’t want to), then Raimi is a pretty intriguing concept. It would certainly be a different movie that the Rings films… but then again, Hobbit is a different story than the Rings books, so that’s fine. Not sure he’d be my first choice for Hobbit… but they could certainly do worse.
As a side note… I think Raimi making statements like this pretty much make it look like he has no intention of returning for any sort of Spider-Man 4 project… which I think we’ve always known that anyway.
