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Darkman (1990)

Starring Liam Neeson, Frances McDorman, Larry Drake, and Colin Friels.  Cinematography by Bill Pope.  Edited by Bud S. Smith and David Stiven.  Produced by Robert Tapert.  Written by Sam Raimi, Chuck Pfarrer, Ivan Raimi, Daniel Goldin, and Joshua Goldin. Directed by Sam Raimi.

Peyton Westlake (played by Liam Neeson) is a scientist trying to engineer a synthetic skin.  But the best artificial flesh he can create will only stay together for ninety nine minutes before it starts to disintegrate. Late one night, while he is engrossed his endless research, Westlake is attacked and tortured by a gang of thugs who leave him for dead. 

He survives the incident but is left badly scarred from head to toe. Using his synthetic skin to disguise himself for short blocks of time Westlake becomes a dark and mysterious vigilante, hunting down and killing the maniacs who ruined his life. He is now known as… Darkman.

Sam Raimi had been trying to get involved with a comic book motion picture franchise for a number of years. In fact, he had tried to purchase the rights to “The Shadow”, but Universal Studios wouldn’t give them up. So instead of waiting for another comic book hero to come along, he decided to make one up his own.

The character of Darkman started as a short story penned by Raimi himself. Hoping to enlist the financial support of Universal, Raimi fleshed the story out into a forty page film treatment.  Once Universal got on board the material was passed over to Chuck Pfarrer, a Navy SEAL turned screenwriter, who wrote the first draft of the screenplay.

Raimi and his brother Ivan then gave it its first round of revisions.  Ivan, an emergency physician, was able to give the script’s medical and scientific elements a boost in credibility with his background in medicine.  The screenplay then moved on to Daniel and Joshua Goldin who wrote their own draft.

Raimi then had one final go at it, but not before his friends Joel and Ethan Coen did a touch of uncredited script doctoring (the Coens would also make a brief cameo in the picture).  After three years of waiting for a green light, Darkman was finally on its way to Universal to start production.

After his first two his Evil Dead films earned him a place in horror fan’s hearts, Raimi wanted to do a project that would be able reach a larger audience while still featuring some of the intensity and excitement that he was becoming so well known for. On the coattails of Tim Burton’s tremendously successful Batman, Darkman was the perfect opportunity to do just that.  It has all of the elements of a great comic book adaptation and a profitable mass market appeal.

Darkman ended up being the number one movie at the box office for its opening weekend.  In fact, it did well enough to spawn two direct to video sequels, a television pilot, two series of comic books, a handful of novels, and a video game. But despite the big budget and the financial success, Raimi claims that the Hollywood filmmaking process left him slightly unfulfilled.  After the intimate filmmaking experiences on his Evil Dead films, studio pictures were good experiences but just not as rewarding.

Budget: $16,000,000

Total US Gross: $32,942,739

Genre: Action

Runtime: 96 Minutes

US Release Date: 8/24/90

Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Awards: none

Tagline: They Destroyed Everything He Had, Everything He Was. Now, Crime Has A New Enemy And Justice Has A New Face.

Quote: “Who's the real monster here?  I destroy to build something better whereas you, you're a man who destroys for revenge!”

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