Posted at 3 p.m. Friday, Oct. 31

"Legend of the Seeker" earns 3 stars.

"Legend of the Seeker" stars among TV's sexy new talent.

Long before Sam Raimi made “Spider-Man” a bajillion-dollar movie franchise, he helped transform a couple of less-anonymous heroes into pop culture phenoms.

Raimi and producing partner Rob Tapert, the men who brought “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys” and “Xena: Warrior Princess” to life on TV in the mid-1990s, are coming back to TV and reviving the syndicated fantasy action genre.

“Legend of the Seeker,” the first such syndicated fantasy project in nearly a decade, debuts at 4 p.m. Saturday on WGN. And although it’s based on the best-selling “Sword of Truth” books by Terry Goodkind, it boasts nearly the same formula that Raimi and Tapert used to make Xena and Herc into household names: a tough woman or a shirtless hunk battling evil with swords and sorcery.

The hunk is Richard Cypher, a strapping teen who is tapped by fate—and the sorceress Kahlan Amnell—to save the world from an evil tyrant named Darken Rahl. In the two-hour premiere, the young woodsman is shocked—and scared—when he learns his destiny from Kahlan.

“Even more than ... Hercules or Xena, he’s just a boy who’s thrust into a situation where he has to rise up and take on the reins of responsibility,” Raimi recently told me during a conference call with reporters. “He doesn’t want it, doesn’t believe it at first that it could possibly be him that so much depends upon. That’s attractive to me.”

Richard’s story, told in Goodkind’s 11-book series that has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide, is what drew the producing partners back to TV for the first time since “Xena” went off the air in 2001. Raimi has been preparing to direct “Spider-Man 4,” and Tapert has been producing horror films such as the “Grudge” series.

“I just so loved Terry Goodkind’s books,” Raimi said. “They’re so gripping and you can’t put them down. I just wanted to bring this to the screen.”

All they needed was an actor attractive enough to go shirtless—and talented enough to play their reluctant hero. Enter Australian newcomer Craig Horner (above right), who read for the part opposite the already-cast Bridget Regan, who plays Kahlan.

“We saw him and instantly fell in love with him ...,” Tapert said. “And he never took off his shirt the entire time he was [auditioning]. And then, when we got on set, I went, ‘Oh my God, he’s quite ripped.’ So anyways, he’s a lovely individual.”

Raimi agreed, saying that Horner has all the qualities they were looking for in Richard, whom he called one of his favorite heroes from his film and TV work.

“He’s such a great role model,” Raimi said. “Everything is against him and he just has a very good soul. ... I hope we can do him justice in the series.”

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