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Bruce Campbell has revealed why he hasn't played Ash Williams in more Evil Dead movies, and the reason is amusingly Bruce Campbell: he's not into schmoozing studio bosses.
While the actor fronted Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead (1981) and its follow-ups Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness, and has produced each Deadite-filled film that followed, his character Ash Williams has been notably absent from the big screen over the last three decades. The smarmy, wild-eyed survivor popped up in the post-credits scene of Fede Álvarez's take in 2013 – but has only featured in comedy TV show Ash vs Evil Dead and its video game spin-off since then.
"I've participated in everything that I can, and it's a process that Rob [G. Tapert] and Sam are way better suited for," Campbell told Forbes. "They dove into the studio system very early. They know executives' names. They know they know the power plays. They know it all, and it was always kind of foreign to me … Whenever I'd meet these [people] or see them on an elevator, I had never had anything to say to them. I was just so detached from it. There are a lot of processes that I don't care for as a filmmaker."
In between promoting his upcoming indie flick Ernie & Emma, Campbell recalled how he, Raimi, and Talbert had a "script development" meeting with Evil Dead Burn director Sébastien Vanicek. "He turned in a 10-page treatment to say, 'Here's my rough idea. Here's what I'm thinking, A to Z' and I think he got 20 pages of notes back," he added candidly.
"That's when I said, 'You guys got this. I think you guys got this.' I got tired of arguing points with someone who's 26 years old about story and structure, and all that sort of stuff, and what matters and what doesn't matter. So, I just found out it's way better to just step back."
While his more hands-off approach suits him, many Evil Dead fans are desperate to see Ash return, as they are Jane Levy's Mia and Evil Dead Rise's final girl Beth (Lily Sullivan). With both Evil Dead Burn and Evil Dead Wrath on the horizon, some genre nuts have taken to social media to plead with those behind the scenes to "PLEASE tie these stories together".
"Pull Bruce out of live-action Ash retirement. Could make it a big multiverse Evil Dead and bring back all of the surviving characters from the previous films. That would be dope," tweeted @GojiraXDAN. Maybe one day...
Evil Dead Burn is scheduled to release on July 24. For more, check out our picks of the best horror movies or our guide to the most exciting upcoming movies still to come.
