With Bruce Campbell now retired from the franchise and Ash vs. Evil Dead cancelled after three seasons, the Evil Dead saga’s currently in a state of limbo, but the actor whose name has long been synonymous with this gory series seems cautiously optimistic.
Though Ash’s goofy screen presence proved crucial in building up the horror property’s cult following, Campbell has observed that between the recent TV show and the 2013 remake, Evil Dead may still have enough noteworthy characters to keep things interesting.
“You have Ash’s daughter, Brandy. She provides the lineage. Ray [Santiago] is a shaman now, you know as Pablo, and Kelly’s just a full-on Lucy Lawless type badass who’s got vengeance in her eyes,” Campbell shared with ComicBook.com. “So, that’s enough for me, three’s a good number. I would also continue the movies with Mia, with Jane Levy, because she’s awesome.”
Moreover, while he may be done with Ash, the actor insisted that there’d be no bitterness if someone else took over the role.
“I have great affinity toward the series. It got me into the film business, but there’s only so much I can do now, but the trick is, why not encourage other people?” the actor pointed out. “I wouldn’t mind seeing another Ash. Get in there bud, what do you got?”
One chapter in the series that got by without any Ash (a post-credits stinger aside) was the 2013 Evil Dead, directed by Fede Alvarez. While Alvarez has since found success with the acclaimed home invasion horror Don’t Breathe, and could raise his profile further with this year’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web, the filmmaker’s recently suggested that he’d be open to returning for a sequel. Campbell, however, wouldn’t hold it against Alvarez if he chose to move on to other, potentially bigger-budgeted projects.
“We’d be lucky if we got [Alvarez for a sequel]. Fede has a career. Fede’s going to be unaffordable very soon,” Campbell joked. “[Original Evil Dead director] Sam Raimi picked him out of nowhere when you would just pick another guy, but I have to say, Fede, I’m so pleased for him. He was able to crawl out from under the Evil Dead shadow, make his own second movie, which was really crazy, and then start making mainstream movies now with big actresses. It’s great, I love it.”
So, we’re hearing a lot of positivity from Campbell right now, but the star’s a little more reserved when it comes to suggesting the actual likelihood of further releases from the Evil Dead series.
“We’ll see where the Evil Dead road goes. There’s no puppet master though,” the actor admitted. “I don’t think Sam Raimi’s sitting in his office going, ‘Okay, now we move the chess piece over here. We do this.’ It’s always been a ramshackle operation. We’re sort of like a franchise with a small f. It was never meant to really be a franchise. So, I don’t know, we’ll see what happens.”
Sure enough, the slightly messy history of The Evil Dead – characterized by tonal reinventions, scrapped sequels and long periods of inaction – has long suggested a series that’s kind of making it up as it goes along. But while we may not know where it’s all headed, we can at least hold out hope that the franchise’s future will be as groovy as its past.
