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Bruce Campbell Reprising Ash Williams One More Time in Evil Dead Video Game
Despite a proclamation that he had retired from playing Ash, Bruce Campbell is set to return as the character in an Evil Dead video game. Campbell is a beloved icon when it comes to fans of the horror genre, primarily thanks to his time playing the Ash Williams role in Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movie trilogy, and its follow-up TV series Ash vs Evil Dead. Overall though, Campbell boasts more than 100 acting credits to his name, and is always a welcome presence onscreen, even in a smaller role.
After a 20-plus year period of dormancy - save for a well-received remake in 2013 from director Fede Alvarez - the Evil Dead franchise reawakened in 2015 for the premiere of Ash vs Evil Dead on premium cable network Starz. Full of the gore and slapstick humor that fans had come to expect from the franchise, Ash vs Evil Dead went over well with most. Unfortunately, its ratings didn't reflect its fan esteem, with Campbell eventually citing rampant piracy as the most likely reason the series wouldn't survive much longer. Sure enough, Starz canceled it after season 3, due to further ratings drops.
Shortly after Ash vs Evil Dead was canceled, Campbell - now 60 years old - announced his retirement from playing his signature demon-slaying character. This naturally saddened fans, who had hoped there might be a chance of a fourth movie finally being made. However, it now seems Campbell's retirement as Ash doesn't extend to non-movie and TV projects. The B-movie legend revealed to Bloody Disgusting that he's set to reprise the role for an upcoming Evil Dead video game.
This won't be Evil Dead's first foray into the video game realm, or even its fifth for that matter. A licensed game based on the first film was released on the Commodore 64 way back in 1984. Then, during Evil Dead's long hiatus from the screen, Campbell voiced Ash in three video game adaptations of the franchise, 2000's Evil Dead: Hail to the King, 2003's Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick, and 2005's Evil Dead: Regeneration. Sadly, all three received mixed reviews at best. An Army of Darkness mobile game was also released in 2011.
While Campbell didn't reveal any details about the new game outside of his own involvement, fans probably shouldn't expect it to pick up the Ash vs Evil Dead story, or feature characters created for that series. As has been stressed before when fans hoped another network would pick the show up, Starz owns the rights to it and anything created for it, and thus would have to agree to allow that material to be used. Much more likely is a game akin to the prior titles, which exists somewhere within the movie continuity, or an alternate universe version of it.
