10 Fun Facts About Sam Raimi’s DARKMAN
Spider-Man wasn’t the first superhero movie Sam Raimi made. In 1990, he made an awesome movie called Darkman that starred Liam Neeson as a brilliant scientist who embarked on a mission of revenge after being burned alive and left for dead. I love this movie, and I think it was one of the first true dark and gritty superhero films that had been made, and it wasn't based on any existing comic book. I recently revisited the film after years of having not seen it, and I was once again blown away by how great it was. Darkman is one of those classic movies that I don't think gets enough love and attention. So, this weeks Fun Facts list features ten bits of trivia that you probably don’t know about Darkman.
According to Bill Paxton, he was almost cast as the lead character Peyton Westlake. He told his friend Liam Neeson about the audition, and Neeson ended up getting the role. Paxton was so pissed off that he didn’t speak to Neeson for months. Raimi liked Neeson's Gary Cooper charisma, and Neeson was drawn to "the operatic nature of the story and the inner turmoil of the character. To research the role, Neeson contacted the Phoenix Society, an organization that helps accident victims with severe disfigurements adjust to re-entering society."
Julia Roberts was going to be cast as Julie Hastings in the film, but she was offered the lead role in Pretty Woman so she had to be replaced, and the role went to Frances McDormand.
Raimi wanted originally wanted Bruce Campbell to play the lead role, but the producers didn’t think that Campbell could pull it off, so he had to audition other actors. Campbell did make a cameo appearance at the end of the film, though. He also voiced some of the screams of characters who fall to their deaths.
The director originally wanted to base this movie on the comic book The Shadow, but he couldn’t get the rights to the character so he created Darkman, which originated from a short story he wrote that paid homage to the Universal horror films of the 1930s.
There was some behind-the-scenes drama during the production of the film. Apparently the screenwriting process was grueling, there were lengthy post-production battles with the studio, the editor allegedly had a nervous breakdown and left the movie, and Raimi and McDormand clashed because of creative differences. She was apparently a very difficult actress to direct.
The script went through 12 drafts. The reason for this is because Raimi wanted to explore Darkman's arc over the course of the film. He said: "I decided to explore a man's soul. In the beginning, a sympathetic, sincere man. In the middle, a vengeful man committing heinous acts against his enemies. And in the end, a man full of self-hatred for what he's become, who must drift off into the night, into a world apart from everyone he knows and all the things he loves."
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, who are close friends of Raimi, did some uncredited cleaning up on the finished script.
Neeson worked 18 hour days in ten-piece makeup. He liked the idea of "working behind a mask on camera, as well as exploring the possibilities this entailed. Neeson also had input on the costume he wore as Darkman, especially the cloak. The hardest part was speaking with false teeth, because he didn't want them to move at all."
Directors Ivan Raimi and John Landis made cameo appearances in the film as doctors in the burn ward.
The villain in the film, Durant, had a finger fetish in the movie. That idea came from Raimi who wanted the character to have a specific trademark that hinted at a military background. This would explain why Durant was proficient with a grenade launcher when he's firing it from a helicopter.
Below you'll find the original trailer and a featurette for the film:
Thanks to Imdb!