“When he’s ready, I’m ready.”
So says Bruce Campbell about returning to the Evil Deadfranchise, which launched both his and director Sam Raimi’s careers back in the 1980s. Last month at the San Diego ComicCon, Raimi stated that he and his full-time brother and part-time writing collaborator were gearing up to work on a draft for a fourth installment of the cult classic series that sees Campbell’s hapless Ash fighting off legions of the undead.
Seeing that the last installment of the film was 1992’s Army Of Darkness, Campbell acknowledged in a recent interview with MTV Movie Blog that Ash strapping on the chainsaw and loading up the boom-stick again will take into account his advancing age.
Sam gets to hide behind the camera. I can’t. But I think he’s planning on factoring that in. As like a major factor. It’d be a major liability, you know Ash runs out of breath or his back goes out and [stuff] like that. I mean I just blew my hamstring fighting a stunt guy for Burn Notice, the show that I’m doing now. So there’s a little bit of truth to all of that!
But while other aging action heroes who have returned to the silver screen have carted along younger sidekicks – We’re looking at you Shia, – Campbell says that Ash won’t be so encumbered.
I think the audience would be insulted if you did, because then you feel this obvious pressure to appeal. The beauty of the Evil Dead movies is that you’re only appealing to one demographic and that’s people who like horror movies. And you just have to please them. You don’t have to appeal to the studio. You’re already pleasing them by giving them part 4.
And while Raimi is now considered one of Hollywood’s more in demand directors thanks to the financial success of the Spider-Man franchise, Campbell thinks it would be best if a new Evil Dead film would return to its low-budget, low-tech roots.
I mean if we were really smart [though], we’d go back to a handheld movie and shoot it in 16mm and find someplace in the middle of nowhere. And have a crew of 10 people. If we were smart.
