Earlier this year, Bruce Campbell shared that the Evil Dead franchise would officially take on a new form with an animated series in development. For the first time on television since hanging up the chainsaw at the end of Ash vs. Evil Dead in 2018, he also confirmed that he’d reprise his role as horror’s grooviest hero Ash Williams for the project, albeit in the recording booth rather than on-screen. The idea is something Campbell and the original trilogy’s director Sam Raimi have been trying to line up for some time as a proper continuation of the legacy established by the 1981 classic that started it all. Though, even if the process has since solidified, that doesn’t mean it’s coming anytime soon.
Campbell recently spoke to ComicBook.com about his upcoming new satanic panic series Hysteria!, taking a moment during the interview to confirm the status of the animated series. Animation is a time-consuming medium, and he says there’s still work to be done with crafting Ash’s return to the creepy and campy world of Deadites before the first frames are even drawn. When asked if he had any updates from when he last spoke about it in August, he shared, “We’re just developing it. So we are, but these are slow-motion, molasses processes, so it could be years away. But yeah, it’s on the hopper and so are two more movies.”
The two movies Campbell mentioned were also announced earlier this year and are similarly in early stages. Coming off the success of Lee Cronin‘s bloody and brutal Evil Dead Rise, these new installments will welcome two more new directors into the fold in Infested‘s Sébastien Vaniček and The Last Stop in Yuma County‘s Francis Galluppi. Like Cronin‘s work, both are set as original standalone stories within the world of Raimi‘s hit horror franchise and will be produced through the director’s Ghost House Pictures banner. Even if it will be some time before anything arrives, it’s an exciting development for Evil Dead to have three projects in active development at the same time, especially when considering the ten-year film gap between Fede Álvarez‘s 2013 reboot and the aforementioned Rise.
What Is Campbell Up to in the Wait for the ‘Evil Dead’ Animated Series?
Expectations will be high for the animated series and the two new movies when Evil Dead finally returns to screens. The franchise is a rare beast without any bad entries and Rise, in particular, was instrumental in showing how the franchise can work in new settings with new characters and even a different approach to its horror. Originally bound for HBO Max and now streaming on Netflix, the film starring Alyssa Sutherland and Lily Sullivan debuted to rave reviews and earned a $147 million box office haul, which helped influence the decision to pursue so many new installments.
Until his return as Ash, Campbell is donning the badge in a recurring role as Chief Dandridge on Hysteria!. The series takes place during the height of the Satanic Panic in the 1980s as a varsity quarterback goes missing, and a whole town is left on high alert. Sensing an opportunity to capitalize on the newfound interest in the occult, a high school metal band made up of outcasts rebrands with more Satanic themes to capture more interest. However, they immediately become the targets of the town’s outrage when a string of mysterious murders, kidnappings, and reported supernatural happenings is traced back to them. Campbell‘s character has to reckon with what his community really is when the witch hunt begins, and he’s joined by a strong cast along the way including Julie Bowen, Anna Camp, Emjay Anthony, Chiara Aurelia, Kezii Curtis, Nikki Hahn, Garret Dillahunt, Nolan North, Elijah Richardson, Milly Shapiro, Allison Scagliotti, and Jessica Treska.
Stay tuned here at Collider for more on the Evil Dead animated series and the two new movies as further updates emerge. In the meantime, Hysteria ! will be released on Peacock this Friday, October 18.
via Collider