Army of Darkness 2 Starring Bruce Campbell Marching to the Big Screen?

The last time we saw Bruce Campbell play Ashley James “Ash” Williams on the big screen was in 1992’s Army of Darkness. However, if the recent news is true and not just Campbell and crew having fun with the audience, we may be set to see Campbell play Ash once again.

News broke from Wondercon earlier this year when Fade Alvarez confirmed that Sam Raimi is working on Army of Darkness 2 as well as possibly planning out a future film that could somehow involve both the original and rebooted Evil Dead films. Still, a lot of people didn’t take the news as a sure thing that Campbell would be returning to the role. Campbell has pretty much shot down any such speculation in the recent past.

Well, things just changed. Bruce Campbell, speaking at Wizard World Nashville Comic Con, reportedly just made the hearts of all the primitive screwheads out there flutter something fierce. Starting with a joking tone, Campbell stated the following in response to questions about Army of Darkness 2 and his onscreen involvement in it. Specifically, one fan asked, “Are you going to make a sequel to Army of Darkness?”

The last one was twenty-two years ago. I just haven’t been racing to do it. Sam Raimi is just a little bit busy making the biggest movies in Hollywood. I used to be busy. Now I’m not. That’s why I’m here.

The fan reportedly pressed the issue and told Campbell that a lot of fans would still love to see it. Campbell continued to respond in a joking tone.

Ash would have to stop occasionally from chasing some deadite to catch his breath. Maybe we could do that, I guess. That would be exciting. Fight in a walker. That would be alright. Hit them with my cane. Fake them out, have a fake heart attack, distract a zombie. I like it.

But then Campbell reportedly switched to a more serious tone for his final comment on the matter.

Alright sir, the answer is yes.

So AoD2 is on with Campbell returning to the role that made him a genre icon? Certainly a lot of sites reporting on this in the last few hours are reporting it as done deal. I’d like to believe it, but I’d like something a bit more official before doing the Dance of Joy.

Saying something is going to get done before the official green light has been given verses actually doing it in Hollywood has always been a fun game even for some of the biggest names. If it was that easy, we’d have all long ago sat down in a theater to watch James Cameron’s Spiderman. Plus, again, I’m just not sure we should be getting too excited just yet based on that exchange given Campbell’s history with joking with the crowds as well as the very loose and unofficial nature of the reported quotes.

But if it is in fact a go? Yeah, I’m there. The only big problem that many people have thrown around about Campbell returning to the role at this late stage of the game has been his age. I’m not sure why that matters though. It’s Hollywood, people. You don’t have to be a tough guy to play one.

I’m more interested in the ideas of where they would go for a new Army of Darkness film. Most of the time when we see the film these days, we see the S-Mart ending. Ash is back home, working at S-Mart once again, pumping rounds into witch-bitch, and getting the girl. But, as is well known to the rabid fans, there was a different ending where Ash slept too long and woke up in a destroyed future.

Could Raimi decide that returning to a post-apocalyptic wasteland would be more fun? Would it be revealed that the world was destroyed by us or by the unleashed evil that Ash once fought and would have to fight again before being sent back to our time to face it yet again? Or would Ash staying in the present time, thus making it much easier to bring the two Evil Dead franchises together, be more fun for fans? We all saw the end of the new Evil Dead. It was a cute wink that many took it as nothing more than that. But what if it was as much hint as wink?

What do you think? Is Campbell being serious here? If he is, would you like to see it? Comment below.

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This post brought to you by Jerry Chandler.

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