Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell has pulled back the crypt door on the next incarnation of the Evil Dead movie franchise. The actor who played Ash in Sam Raimi’s original trilogy spilled the blood — er, beans — in an interview with Empire magazine.
Campbell said that Lee Cronin will write and direct the new feature, which is titled Evil Dead Now and features a female lead, as did 2013’s Evil Dead pic. Ireland native Cronin, who made his feature debut with last year’s horror tale The Hole in the Ground, was “handpicked” by Raimi for the gig, Campbell said.
Two years after Ash vs. Evil Dead ended its three-year run on Starz and nearly four decades after the creepshow began with The Evil Dead, Campbell said he won’t be appearing in the new film.
“From this point forward, [the Evil Dead films] kind of have to stand on their own. Which is fine. And liberating,” Campbell told the magazine in a snippet released today. “You could have different heroes, different heroines in this case. This one’s gonna be a little more dynamic. We just want to keep the series current. And the mantra, really, is that our heroes and heroines are just regular people. That’s what we’re going to continue.”
The full interview will be included in the July issue of Empire, which goes on sale Thursday.