Renaissance Pictures is an American motion picture production company established on August 10, 1979. The works for which Renaissance Pictures is best known are: Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness, Xena: Warrior Princess, The Grudge, Darkman, and Legend of the seeker. The company was founded by three young men from the Detroit metropolitan area, at least one of whom is now a household name; Robert Tapert, Bruce Campbell, and Sam Raimi.

Due to the popular Spiderman movie series, Sam Raimi has become that household name. Although he began directing in the early 1970s, Raimi’s first major film was The Evil Dead. Since his debut in October 1979, Raimi has worked in various positions in the film industry on more than fifty individual projects. Raimi now resides in Los Angeles with his wife, Gillian Dania Greene, and his children, Lorne, Henry, Emma, ​​and Dashiell.

The only actor in the group, Bruce Campbell, showed an interest in acting from an early age after being exposed to community theater and spent much of his youth acting in short films for Sam Raimi. The Birmingham, Michigan native briefly attended Western Michigan University before packing up to head to Tennessee for groundwork on Renaissance Pictures’ first effort. Evil Dead was his first major non-local role, but since then he has worked on over a hundred projects as a director, actor, producer, editor and writer. In 1991, Campbell married Hollywood costume designer Ida Gearon. Campbell also has two children, Rebecca and Andy from a previous marriage. He currently lives in Oregon and stars on the USA Network show Burn Notice.

Rob Tapert was the last to join the Renaissance Pictures team. While attending Michigan State University for accounting, Tapert was introduced to Raimi and Campbell by Raimi’s older brother, writer Ivan Raimi. Since his foray into Hollywood, Tapert has worked as a writer or producer on more than fifty films and television shows. While producing Xena: Warrior Princess, he began dating and subsequently married the show’s main character played by Kiwi actress Lucy Lawless. They were married in March 1998 and live happily in Los Angeles with their two children, Julius and Judah.