Last night at the post-premiere Q&A for the South by Southwest Film Festival premiere of Evil Dead, director Fede Alvarez revealed that they’re already writing the sequel to the remake, which we’re going to dub Evil Dead 2 until a better title comes along.
But just last week, Sam Raimi revealed that he and his brother Ted are working on a screenplay for an Evil Dead 4, which would presumably follow the further adventures of Bruce Campbell’s Ash Williams.
Could they have been talking about the same project or is it possible that sometime in the future we may have competing Evil Dead franchises, both involving Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell? Not exactly.
According to Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures producing partner Rob Tapert, they were never talking about doing an Evil Dead 4 but actually doing a direct sequel to Army of Darkness.
“That would be ‘Army of Darkness 2,'” Tapert said, correcting the earlier news story when we talked to him at the movie junket. “Everybody calls it ‘Evil Dead 4’ but ‘Army of Darkness’ wasn’t called ‘Evil Dead’ anywhere except by the fans.”
And how does Bruce Campbell feel about returning as Ash? At the same Q&A last night, the actor told the audience that he’s fine if the younger actors take over the franchise allowing his three movies to stand alone and apart, but if the Raimis are writing a fourth installment of their series, wouldn’t that mean it would have to revolve around his character Ash?
“Sam threatens this every six months,” he told us during the same interview. “I’ve heard this a thousand times, because in the back of his mind, he never wants to let go, because he loved making these movies. We all loved making them together. They were a nightmare to make, very difficult, but they lasted the test of time, so he’s not going to let that go, and I’m never going to say ‘no.’ It’ll be me and a walker fighting some other old guy. But that’s what he does and who knows? It may happen.”
And what about that sequel to Evil Dead, which played like gangbusters at SXSW last night? We asked Jane Levy if she had heard any of the crazy stuff they might do to her in the sequel, which she’s already signed on to do.
“They haven’t actually, but Shiloh has a secret,” she said about her co-star who plays her brother in the upcoming remake. “He knows stuff but I don’t, but I’m excited for it.”
We’ll try to post some of the video from this portion of the interview later on and the rest of it before Evil Dead opens nationwide on April 5.
