Bruce Campbell Explains Why He Won’t Be Playing Ash in the New Evil Dead

Bruce Campbell, despite his minimal involvement with the new Evil Dead movie, has been a go-to source for news on the movie. And he continues to fill us all in on what the deal is, including why he won’t be reprising his role as Ash. His reason? The new Evil Dead is a flat-out reboot — without Ash. But let’s hear him out. His — and Sam Raimi‘s — reasoning is actually pretty sound.

In an interview with TV Guide, which was mostly about his role on USA‘s Burn Notice (what is Burn Notice?), Campbell was asked about his involvement with the new Evil Dead and why he wasn’t playing The Idiot Ash. And he said that not only was Ash not going to be in this movie, but he didn’t know exactly what kind of cameo he was going to make:

I don’t know. I don’t know. The old farmer? “Hey! How’s it going…?” I don’t know.

Great! But his reasons for why there would be no new Ash is because Campbell — and every other Evil Dead fan — knows that those are big shoes to fill:

There’s no Ash character in it, and that pisses people off, because they’re like, “How can you have Evil Dead without Ash!?” We didn’t want to have a direct comparison. You put Ash and all those characters in and people go, “Oh, that guy was OK…” I wouldn’t want to put a guy in that position.

What that was just now was the great Bruce Campbell admitting that no one can replace him. And he’s absolutely right — no matter how excellent the actor playing a new Ash would have been, he wouldn’t have been Bruce Campbell, and that would have never been good enough for the vast majority of fans. However Ash’s heir apparent still might have a chance in a brand new story. And Campbell seems to imply that the idea of a remake or reboot has never been far from his and original director Raimi’s minds:

You know we wanted to remake a movie that would have better effects, we’re better at telling stories now, and so we found a young director, Fede Alvarez, who’s from Uruguay who’s going to direct the thing.

So, any fans who consider themselves to be on the scale from “purist” to “virulent” should take into consideration the fact that this was not a big studio’s idea to make money. This has been on the minds of the original filmmakers for a while. And this might give us a good reason to be cautiously optimistic.

(TV Guide via io9)

Previously in Evil Dead

• http://www.example.com/“>New Details on the New Evil Dead Movie Reveal Why Anyone Would Go to That Damn Cabin
• Who Should Really Be Allowed to Replace Bruce Campbell in the New Evil Dead Movie?
• Bruce Campbell Will Appear in the Evil Dead Remake, Feel Free to Feel Conflicted About This