Sam Raimi, ‘Barbarian’ EP Alex Lebovici’s Hammerstone Studios Reteam With Christian Mercuri’s Capstone On Horror-Thriller ‘Don’t Move’

EXCLUSIVE: Genre legend Sam Raimi’s Raimi Productions and Barbarian EP Alex Lebovici’s Hammerstone Studios are reteaming with Christian Mercuri’s Capstone Studios to produce the horror-thriller, Don’t Move. The project comes following the parties’ collaboration on Boy Kills World — an action-thriller starring Bill Skarsgård, which is currently in post-production. 

Don’t Move watches as a seasoned killer injects a grieving woman with a paralytic agent. She must then run, fight and hide before her body completely shuts down.

The film’s helmers are Adam Schindler and Brian Netto, who recently wrote and directed episodes of Rami’s horror anthology series 50 States of Fright for the defunct short-form streaming platform, Quibi. Its writers, T.J. Cimfel and David White, previously penned the Rory Culkin-led horror-thriller Intruders, also directed by Schindler. 

Lebovici, Raimi and Zainab Azizi are the producers for Don’t Move, which is currently casting. Exec producers include Mercuri, David Haring, Marc Manus, Schindler, Netto and Petr Jákl. Hammerstone is co-financing alongside Capstone, with Capstone Global handling worldwide rights.

“It’s amazingly exciting for us to reunite with the genre master Sam Raimi, and Zainab Azizi, who yet again have found two extremely talented young filmmakers in Adam and Brian to bring Don’t Move to life,” said Hammerstone Studios’ Lebovici. “We are honored to be part of such a fantastic project.”

“Alex and the team at Hammerstone as well as our friends at Capstone are the ideal production partners as we bring this compelling and twisted tale to light,” added Raimi. “I am delighted to collaborate again with our co-directors Adam and Brian on this incredibly frightening and tense story full of so many twists and turns – it will deliver a fantastic horror punch to the audience!” 

Raimi is an iconic filmmaker perhaps best known for his work on the Spider-Man and Evil Dead franchises who founded Raimi Productions with producer Robert Tapert and actor Bruce Campbell in 1979. He most recently directed Marvel’s global sensation Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness starring Benedict Cumberbatch and is also producing Sony Pictures’ Adam Driver-led thriller 65, written and directed by A Quiet Place scribes Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, among other upcoming projects.

Lebovici’s Hammerstone Studios finances, develops and produces independent films across all genres, having produced nearly 20 films and financed over $200M in budgets. The producer has been quietly amassing a string of buzzy films of late, including the critically acclaimed 20th Century Studios horror Barbarian, which took over $45M in worldwide box-office, and Bill & Ted Face the Music. He most recently wrapped production on Boy Kills World, which he produced alongside Raimi and Roy Lee, and is currently in post on the feature adaptation of the short Kung Fury the Movie, starring Michael Fassbender, Arnold Schwarzenegger and David Sandberg, as well as Yuval Adler’s Sympathy for the Devil, starring Nicolas Cage and Joel Kinnaman. Also coming up for the producer is a feature adaptation of Hideo Kojima’s hit video game Death Stranding, on which he’s partnered with Kojima Productions. 

Capstone Global and Capstone Studios are an independent financing, production and worldwide sales company focused on high quality commercial films for a global audience. The company established in 2017 is headed up by sales and distribution veteran Mercuri, who has sold, financed and produced over 260 features to date. Recent credits include the comedy The Estate with Toni Collette and Anna Faris, the biopic Spinning Gold on record producer Neil Bogart, and the Catherine Hardwicke-directed drama Prisoner’s Daughter starring Kate Beckinsale and Brian Cox, to name a few.

Raimi Productions is repped by CAA and Hansen, Jacobson, Teller; Hammerstone Studios by Neil Sacker at Sacker Entertainment Law.