Bruce Campbell Says Ash Is Done, and This Time We Have to Believe Him

I have to apologize for continually reporting the same information, but I don’t think our younger readers quite understand the significance of this moment, or the blind faith us Evil Dead faithful have maintained for more than 30 years that somehow, someday, Bruce Campbell would pick up the chainsaw one more time.

Campbell has now made it about as definitive as humanly possible. After reiterating that “Ash is done,” he took to social media to explain that he was already tapped out after Ash vs. Evil Dead, citing both “ability and interest” and saying he didn’t want Ash compromised by his declining physical skills. “I’ll always love Evil Dead to death — literally,” Campbell wrote. And this one hurts because, unlike Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers, Ash Williams isn’t a mask that can be handed to another actor. Ash is Bruce Campbell.

For those who weren’t around for the decades-long wait, it’s difficult to explain how badly horror fans wanted him back. Army of Darkness arrived in 1993 and grossed only about $11.5 million domestically against an approximately $11 million budget. But the movie became a massive cult favorite, and “Will there be an Evil Dead 4?” essentially became the question Campbell and Sam Raimi couldn’t escape. There’s a fantastic 2002 interview where Campbell is asked about it and answers that Raimi “may long for the old days,” while another interview from that era has him joking that fans should start mailing in money so they could finance the damn thing themselves. It wasn’t all bullshit, either. Raimi announced in 2007 that he and his brother Ivan Raimi were going to work on Evil Dead 4; by 2008 Ivan was writing it, and reports continued into 2009 that a script existed.

Of course, one of the biggest “what ifs” had actually come years earlier: one of the greatest horror movies we never got. After Freddy vs. Jason became a hit in 2003, New Line actually entered discussions with Raimi about . This wasn’t internet fan fiction: New Line executive developed a treatment, and Campbell later confirmed that conversations took place. The sticking point, according to Campbell and , was beautifully simple: Raimi’s camp wanted Ash to beat Freddy and Jason, and The movie died, but Katz’s treatment eventually became the comic series. For fans who had already spent a decade waiting for Ash, it was another glimpse of the impossible followed by another door slamming shut.