When Sam Raimi suddenly revealed plans to write Evil Dead 4 this summer, fans were justifiably shocked and more than a little excited about it. It's something people have wanted to see since 1992's Army of Darkness, but Raimi had always sort of brushed off the idea. This would be an odd time for it to happen, though, with Raimi already producing a younger-skewing remake directed by Fede Alvarez. How would it work having two Evil Dead franchises running parallel to one another? Red Carpet News TV caught up with Raimi and asked him exactly that question....
Raimi: "We don't think about anything too much, but thinking about it right now, yes. The new Evil Dead film doesn't have the Ash character, it's a brand new set of characters in a similar situation. So the Ash character is still either trapped in time in the far flung future in a blasted London, or he's working in S Mart; based on either the Japanese version or the American version of the film. I'm not quite sure yet. That's where Evil Dead 4 would probably pick up."
Both of those endings worked for me, as they showed Ash to be a moron of the highest order, which he clearly was. But the reason why Raimi is so uncertain about the direction he'd take the film is that he may have felt a little pushed into making the announcement before he was ready to. At least that's the impression I got from what he told our friend Brendon Connelly (I better see you at Comic-Con, dude!) over at Bleeding Cool. I'm just going to take the entire quote they secured, and thank them again for the info....
Raimi: Those guys made me say that. I am thinking about it but a crowd goes “Come on Sam, do it!” so I said “Okay, I guess I was talking to my brother about it.” But I feel like I was pushed into saying that, a little bit. In the hallway today I joked with Ivan [his brother] “Get working on that script!” but I really don’t know.
I’m afraid that every time I talk about it people get really mad at me when I don’t follow through with it. I would like to work on the script over the summer, that much is true. But the reason to come back and do it again is only that they’re making me, those fans.
I was saying to Ivan “Why do they stay on this thing? Why do they keep at it?” and he said “They want to make a movie. You’re a filmmaker and your fans are asking you to make the movie. What are you, an idiot? Make the movie!” I guess there’s something I don’t see. It makes sense when Ivan says it… but I didn’t have a tremendous amount of passion until right now to bring to it.
I love working with Bruce Campbell and Rob Tapert, I have so much fun making those movies, so… but the fans are really forcing me into it.
So it sounds like he's still trying to find the right motivation to make Evil Dead special for him, the way projects such as Spider-Man and Oz the Great and Powerful clearly were. I feel like maybe he got all of the goofy horror stuff out of his system with Drag Me to Hell, and maybe there isn't really that desire to do more Evil Dead except to get fans to stop asking about it. I hope that's not the case.
