'Ash Vs. Evil Dead' TV Series Will Feature Two New Leads Alongside Bruce Campbell
Bruce Campbell will fight evil once again in Ash vs. Evil Dead, a 10-episode TV series planned for broadcast on Starz in 2015. The show basically acts as Evil Dead 4, but will offer more than a single film could. In a huge interview, Campbell has spoken up about some of what the show will do, and given a brief description of two new characters who will join him in the fight against the deadites.EW has a massive interview with Campbell, and you should read the entire thing if you're keen to know all about the Evil Dead revival. He says Sam Raimi is only confirmed to direct the pilot at this point, but that he will be involved in overseeing the show, and in post-production. Campbell isn't shy about his enthusiasm for Raimi's participation, saying "I wouldn't take it seriously if they didn't get Sam, and neither would the fans. So we're on the right road."
Here's the basic plot of the series, via the magazine:
Ash is living in a trailer park and working his latest thankless big-box store job when a return of the Deadites prompts him to take a road trip with two young co-workers (and, of course, his trusty boomstick).
Campbell says that the series will offer a chance to show more of Ash's character:
We realized if we made another movie, frankly, it would probably be too expensive. But in the format of a TV show, we could give people exactly what they wanted and expand the character and the story even more. Ash would probably have more dialogue in one season than in three movies. He'll have to become a more fleshed-out character as well.
And the horror and gore is going to be there, too:
We're going to give people a little of the old fashioned splatstick—horror and comedy. The fans have been really good to us over the years. This is an opportunity to do something with full street cred... Something we're doing is taking the horror parts very seriously. We're not making fun of the horror aspects. And it's going to cause Ash—this crabby middle-aged man who doesn't want to get dragged back into this—a lot of problems. He's not the Ash he used to be... And the beauty of Starz is there's no content issues. Let's face it: Fans want the carnage and the mayhem. So we intend to give them quite the explosion of viscera. Most of it directed at me, unfortunately.
And what about those new characters?
It's a threesome, which is a good number. Since it's not cast yet, it would be silly to fully describe them. But they're supposed to be two very good counterparts. One is a male-bonding situation; the other is father-figure deal, since Ash could have a daughter the same age as this character. Hopefully we'll pull Ash out of his loner-veteran mode and get him back into being a human being again.