UPDATED: Sam Raimi (Maybe Doesn't) Directs "Poltergeist" Remake

UPDATE: Reports are now coming that Raimi is NOT directing the film yet, but is still onboard to produce. This is my sad face.

ORIGINAL POST: ...okay, this just feels weird to type. I'm used to thinking of remakes as generational things - "new" talents doing an update of movies made by the father's and grandfather's era of filmmakers. Raimi is a few years younger than Tobe Hooper, but they were both coming up and into their own as "name" horror directors in roughly the same decade. I mean... it's like if James Cameron said he was going to remake "E.T."

Annoyed as I am with classic horror remakes... this actually excites me. Part of what made the original "Poltergeist" such a big deal at the time was taking the haunted house genre out of the "spooky old manor," placing it in the contemporary setting of suburban sprawl (the entire premise hinges on the audience's understanding that these bloated insta-neighborhoods really were springing-up rapidly and without much oversight) and the contemporary anxiety of suburban suffocation (for an interesting take on that, go HERE.) And it's not like either of those things haven't gotten more topical - "Poltergeist" in the aftermath of the Real Estate Bubble? Okay, sign me up.