Hey folks, Harry here... Over at IGN - Stax is running a story about how Sam Raimi has allegedly committed to direct a project that would unite the classic Street & Smith Publications characters - like Doc Savage, The Avenger, The Shadow and possibly the rest of their heroes gallery and rogues gallery into the mother of all pulp projects. You can read their story at the link above.

Well. I'm not going to say the story is wrong, as I haven't spoken directly with Sam Raimi - though I do have a call into his office. But for the last year I've been tracking Raimi's development of Street and Smith Publications.

You see. Sam's biggest passion from their catalogue is THE SHADOW. Prior to Alec Baldwin getting a nose in on the gig, Raimi was attempting to get the property at Universal - with the Coen Brothers set to write it up for him to direct. That fell through - and he made DARKMAN as a reaction. It was around this same time that he lost out on BATMAN. However, Marty Bregman thought the HIGHLANDER guy was the better route to go. Eh... 20/20 is a bitch.

In the last year or so - I've heard that Raimi has been taking meetings with various directors to discuss a possible DOC SAVAGE film. But closer to home, I've heard that Raimi had found a writer for his THE SHADOW movie, but that no commitments were in hand, as of yet.

As for the whole Street and Smith character library - It's possible that Raimi just optioned them all with that big SPIDER-MAN money and in reality was planning this project that IGN has a scoop on. HOWEVER - this is all rumor at this point.

Like I said. I know for a fact that THE SHADOW and DOC SAVAGE are separate projects that were being developed as separate projects at least 4 months ago. I'll continue to knock on Raimi's door to get to the truth, but at this point the only one that knows for sure, is his Shadow...