Exclusive interview: Bruce Campbell is having a renaissance
![NEW YORK, NY - MAY 17: Bruce Campbell speaks at the USA Network Upfront show at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center on May 17, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/USA/[NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images] for USA Network)](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_1080,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape%2Fcover%2Fsport%2F6b250cacb9e76ddd9fe06d45866f4de1a97078c65c6d8825e79cf52d07cb8680.jpg "NEW YORK, NY - MAY 17: Bruce Campbell speaks at the USA Network Upfront show at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center on May 17, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/USA/[NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images] for USA Network)")
Number One on the Charts with a Bullet
BC (Cont.): In the meantime, what is nice, I’m finishing up a couple of projects. I’m hoping by the end of the year to put a book of essays out and a comedy album with Ted Raimi.
1428 Elm: A comedy album?
BC: Yeah, we finished it. I’m in post-production on it. I’m putting all the sound effects in now.
1428 Elm: That sounds great!
BC: Who knows? We’ve never done one before so we’re going to find out.
1428 Elm: So, you guys are harkening back to the 1960’s when comedians like Bob Newhart had hit albums?
BC: It’s our version of that. I used to listen to the top comedy albums during the 60’s and 70’s. I wouldn’t dare compare myself to any of the masters like Mel Brooks and the 2,000-Year-Old Man with Carl Reiner. We gave it a shot. I love audio and I like radio plays.
Bruce Campbell vs the Classic Monsters
1428 Elm: So, tell us what is going on with your political satire, House Divided. Are you still working on pitching that once everything gets back to business as usual?
BC: It will be on the sales block. It’s a harder sell. There’s no blood. It’s not a horror movie, it’s a political satire. Associating Bruce Campbell with political satire isn’t the first thing investors whip out their checkbooks for.
To combat that, I just finished writing a sequel to My Name Is Bruce. The idea is we want to take Bruce and have him go through each of the classic film monsters. The sequel is Bruce vs Frankenstein.
We’re done. I finished my draft and sent it to Mike Richardson, my partner at Dark Horse Comics. We’re actively looking for money on that one. It is the Expendables of Horror. I fully intend to load the cast with so many familiar horror faces. It should be a lot of fun.
It would be a cavalcade of genre stars, old, young, on TV now. We really want to cover the bases. A lot of people will be getting killed. Guest star kills. Basically, Bruce bumbles his way into being a hero.
1428 Elm: Will you have to go through Universal to get permission to use the classic monsters?
BC: Some stuff is public domain. I’m not a lawyer but we would figure out a way to do this.
I think the bolts on Frankenstein’s neck are trademarked, as well as certain looks. But you can make a Frankenstein. That story is under public domain.
It’s also a parody of a Frankenstein movie and that gives a lot of leeway legally as well. I don’t think you can say, “Wolfman,” but I think you can say Bruce vs the Werewolf. This is my version of the Bob Hope road movies.
Ted has two parts; I have two parts for Robert Englund and I have a couple of parts for Kane Hodder. If they’re a name, I am going to put them in it.
After we come out of the zombie apocalypse that we’re in and everyone gets back to work, that is what I will be actively pitching. There’s plenty going on. So, I have been self-isolating in a constructive way.