Bruce Campbell On How Evil Dead Rise Connects To Rest of Franchise, Plans For Future Films

Evil Dead Rise shrieked into theaters this weekend, and producer Bruce Campbell talked about the film’s connection to the overall universe and plan for films going forward. Campbell spoke with AV Club about the new film and Sam Raimi’s plans to get a new film out sooner than the 10 year gap between this one and the 2013 Evil Dead. You can see some highlights below:

On the films being connected by the Necronomicons: “It’s all about the books now. It has nothing to do with Ash or any particular character. In Army Of Darkness, we first saw three books. So we know there are three out there, and none of them are any good. It’s about: where does that darn book wind up, who gets it, and what happens? But the universe is the same. It’s about innocent people with no special skills having to fight for their very lives, and in this case, it’s a wayward sister and this young daughter. So it’s still a pressure cooker. They get isolated. The apartment is the cabin. The fact that it’s a creepy old high-rise in downtown L.A. is just cool. You know, I think Lee did a good job of keeping the old and the new, like the kid playing the records is a good variation of how you release these demons.”

On getting “soaked with blood cannons” being an Evil Dead rite of passage for the cast: “It’s totally a rite of passage. I told every one of these actors, you will probably never work on a shoot for the rest of your career that was this difficult. That’s the beauty of doing an Evil Dead movie. I think during my first non-Evil Dead movie, I was like, ‘Oh, this process is this nothing!'”

On the future of the franchise: “The only problem with that [a larger-scale movie] is that it can get out of hand and if we jump into that world too quickly, it’s hard to get it back. I think the stories will progress a little more now. We’re going to try and do them more like every two or three years rather than every 10 years. It’s also the first time Sam is working with his brother Ivan to create an overall Bible that will give future writers and directors an idea of where this thing should go next to potentially tie in some of these stories. So I think it’s going to get a little more tied in as the years go by. But because it’s all about the books. It could be a book in the past, a book in the future. It’s yet to be determined.”

On potentially directing an Evil Dead film: “I’m not sure if I’d feel comfortable going after that. Sam usually picks these guys. I think the trick now is to go after some younger filmmakers. Directing is fun and I’ve done a fair amount of it, but I don’t think I would dip my feet into this world. It’s too familiar.”

Evil Dead Rise is a hit for the studio thus far, grossing $23.5 million domestically and $40.3 million worldwide in its first weekend against an $18 million production budget.