Evil Dead II

raimi's 1987 sequel to the evil dead, co-written with scott spiegel and produced by renaissance pictures with dino de laurentiis financing. stephen king, who had championed the first film, personally called de laurentiis to ask him to fund the project, and de laurentiis agreed to $3.6 million on the condition raimi scrap his medieval time-travel premise and return to the cabin setting. raimi could not use footage from the original film because distributor irvin shapiro had sold rights worldwide, making licensing impossible, so the opening restages the first film's setup with new actors. de laurentiis retained sequel rights, which later enabled him to co-produce army of darkness with universal, and his company's library (including evil dead ii distribution rights) was sold to studiocanal in 1994.