The Evil Dead universe will have to do without its hero Ash Williams, as his actor Bruce Campbell has made it clear that his chainsaw arm-swinging days are over.
"We're doing it book-focused these days. That darn book gets around, and that's how we play it," Campbell said to Collider about how he and longtime collaborator Sam Raimi plan to keep their franchise going with the upcoming Evil Dead Rise. "That book wound up in an urban environment with a single mom, so let's see what happens. It's fun to fiddle with it. There's not gonna be any traditional form of Evil Dead anymore."
Campbell previously confirmed Ash's retirement in 2018, following his Starz series Ash vs. Evil Dead's cancellation. He explained that he "physically just can't do him anymore," given the stunt work demanded for the character. "Whatever the cliched phrase is, I left it all on table. I've got nothing else to give," he continued. "The three seasons were the longest seasons of my life. If you saw the emails pleading with various directors that were like, 'Hey, my knee's not working right. Be careful about tomorrow. Let's have the stunt guy nearby. Hey, I can't run anymore.' It just was an endless physical struggle."
However, the B-Movie icon remains grateful that he was able to conclude Ash's story with Ash vs. Evil Dead. As Campbell put it, "we saw Ash's home, we went into his bedroom, we met his girlfriends, we met his daughter that we never knew he had and that he never knew he had, and we met his father, played by the great Lee Majors. I feel we really pushed all the buttons and he fulfilled his destiny written in that ancient book. He was the guy destined to defeat evil in the past, present and future, and he took off with a hot robot chick at the end to go kick in the future. What else do you need?"
After releasing The Evil Dead in 1981, Campbell and Raimi revisited Ash and his war against the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis with two sequels, 1987's Evil Dead II and 1992's Army of Darkness. The two would then continually collaborate on Raimi's projects like Xena: Warrior Princess and the Spider-Man trilogy, and both are executive producers on Evil Dead Rise, whose director, Lee Cronin, recently wrapped up production on the film. Rise focuses on Beth, a woman whose visit to her sister Ellie's L.A. apartment is ruined by a returning Necronomicon, leading to the complex being overrun by Deadites.
Campbell currently stars in Black Friday, a horror-comedy about a department store whose employees, in addition to dealing with shoppers on the titular holiday, must fight off an alien parasite turning them into monsters. He will also appear in Raimi's upcoming Marvel film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Black Friday is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video. Evil Dead Rise will release to HBO Max in 2022.
Source: Collider, ScreenRant