Sam Raimi Files Lawsuit For Rights To “The Evil Dead”

Deadline is reporting that not only has filming begun on The Evil Dead reboot but so has a legal battle. Sam Raimi’s production company Renaissance Pictures, who is producing the reboot, has filed a lawsuit against Award Pictures over Award’s plans to produce an Evil Dead 4.

Renaissance Pictures, the production company which Raimi started with The Evil Dead producer Robert Tapert and star Bruce Campbell, are suing for false advertising, injury to business reputation, unfair competition and trademark infringement. They also claim that Evil Dead 4 conflicts with the reboot and will only confuse people into believing that Award Pictures had anything to do with the original or the reboot.  Award Pictures isn’t taking the suit lightly and have in turn released a statement that says a quote from Raimi  “we’re never going to do a sequel,”  was “a public declaration by the defendant that the defendant abandoned the alleged ‘mark’ on Evil Dead decades ago.”

This whole thing seems to have started last year when Renaissance filed paperwork with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to register the Evil Dead trademark and Award in turn filed a complaint. They claimed that they (Award Pictures) had rights to the film because Raimi had allowed his to expire.

So while the legal battle over the dead gets underway in a courtroom near you, the reboot is currently filming in New Zealand and will be released April 12, 2013.