As of late, I just can’t get enough Bruce Campbell apparently. Granted, it is the Spooky Season, full of all things horrific and bloody. Speaking of bloody though, there was no bloodier show on TV than Ash vs. Evil Dead, which was unfortunately canceled after three seasons. And as fun as all the splatterhouse gore was, that may have actually led to Bruce retiring from the part of Ash, according to the original Evil Dead creator, Sam Raimi.
During a panel at the New York Comic-Con, Raimi was asked about Campbell’s future as the chainsaw-handed hero. The director, who’s a close friend of the actor in question, had this to say:
I want more, but Bruce Campbell has said ‘No.’ He’s tired of me throwing blood on him. 40 years of Bruce and those sticky syrup shirts… He wants to work again, but he just doesn’t want to play that role right now.
As Campbell has said himself, he’s heavily invested in the future of the franchise. As we confirmed the other week, he’s still at the very least voicing Ash in that upcoming Evil Dead video game that nobody seems to know anything about whatsoever. It also seems like both Raimi and Campbell are interested in a sequel to that 2013 re…boot(?), but Ash still exists so it’s not, like…it still confuses me, but hey, whatever gets us more Deadites.
The fate of the TV show was unfortunate. Personally, I wish they’d waited to go full steam ahead on it after they’d re-secured the rights to Army of Darkness in order to make that canon. That move would have let the show breathe more without having to slice up the established world before re-expanding on it, you know?
Either way, I’m not too worried, because Ash vs. Evil Dead, albeit without Bruce Campbell as Ash, will be back in some form, eventually. Count on it.