Bruce Campbell is a living legend. The actor is among the most charismatic and compelling performers in the entertainment industry and has left an indelible impression on audiences across multiple generations. Campbell, of course, got his start with his childhood friend Sam Raimi, making and starring in The Evil Dead.
What started out as a ragtag shoestring-budget horror film being made in a cabin in the middle of the woods turned into a decades-spanning franchise and allowed Campbell to reprise the role of his central protagonist, Ash Campbell, time and again in works like Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn, Army of Darkness, and even the TV series Ash vs Evil Dead.
However, the latest generation of Evil Dead remakes, reboots, and sequels has largely steered clear of Campbell or Ash, instead focusing on new characters being exposed to the evil of the Deadites. Notably, Campbell has cameoed in all three of the new films (a post-credit shot of him saying “groovy” in 2013’s Evil Dead, an audio-only cameo in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise, and a photograph of him in 2026’s Evil Dead Burn), which has given longtime fans hope that the actor might one day return in a fuller capacity to the franchise. But in recent comments made, Campbell shot down that idea and made it clear that his time playing Ash is over. As the actor bluntly put it when speaking with ScreentRant, “Ash is done.”
"It really boils down to that: spending time in another country working on somebody else's movie, or spending time in your hometown working on your own movie? It wasn't a hard choice, you know what I mean? When I didn't have to actually work on the Evil Dead movies, they're still optional, and because they're optional, I just opted out," Campbell elaborated. "I just said, 'I'm making a movie. I got to go make this movie, and I got to make this movie for as many years as it takes, because after this run at Alamo Drafthouse, I'm going to theoretically jump to another tour.'"
These comments come shortly after Campbell revealed his own criticisms of the most recent films, saying that he wished they could reincorporate a bit more color and humor into the proceedings. In light of all of this, it sounds as if Campbell is well and truly distancing himself from the Evil Dead franchise and making it clear that audiences should not expect him to pop up in any kind of meaningful capacity in next year’s Evil Dead Wrath.
It’s critical to note that Campbell has been dealing with his own health-related struggles in recent months and that that could very well play into all of this. But even when pressed further in the interview, about possibly voicing Ash in an animated film that would be less physically taxing on the actor, Campbell was quick to shoot down the possibility, re-emphasizing that “Ash is done.”
This is undoubtedly a massive shame. I, like many, had been holding out hope that Raimi and Campbell might reconvene for one last hurrah, maybe even as a definitive final installment of the whole Evil Dead series, but Campbell’s most recent comments make it sound like that isn’t going to happen. The franchise has now been passed on to a new generation of filmmakers, and Campbell isn’t particularly interested in being a part of future installments.
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