Back in November, Starz announced that Bruce Campbell is bringing back Ash and his trusty boomstick from the beloved Evil Dead franchise with the new TV series Ash Vs. Evil Dead. The show was given a 10-episode order, with original The Evil Dead director Sam Raimi serving as executive producer on the series, alongside Rob Tapert. The initial announcement revealed that Ash has continued to avoid responsibility for the past 30 years, living in a trailer park and still working as a stock boy, when his unique skills are needed to fight the Deadites once again. He embarks on a road trip with two younger co-workers and his boomstick to save the world. Bruce Campbell shed some new light on the series in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, where he talked extensively about why they decided to make a TV series instead of another movie.
"We realized if we made another movie, frankly, it would probably be too expensive. But in the format of a TV show, we could give people exactly what they wanted and expand the character and the story even more. Ash would probably have more dialogue in one season than in three movies. He'll have to become a more fleshed-out character as well. And we never burned Evil Dead as a franchise out-it's not like we did 13 of these movies. So we felt like, what the heck, let's give it a try. Walking Dead is Walking Dead, but we were kind of first. And I would say it's about as big of a counterpart to Walking Dead as you could program, because Walking Dead is unrelentingly grim and hugely popular. We're going to give people a little of the old fashioned splatstick-horror and comedy."
While there will be plenty of humor to go around, Bruce Campbell revealed that they're taking the horror aspects very seriously.
"Something we're doing is taking the horror parts very seriously. We're not making fun of the horror aspects. And it's going to cause Ash-this crabby middle-aged man who doesn't want to get dragged back into this-a lot of problems. He's not the Ash he used to be. He continues being a trash-talking know-it-all who doesn't really know anything. He's the ultimate anti-hero. He's a guy with no appreciable skills. He's not a former Navy SEAL, he's not a former CIA or FBI. He's no special anything. He's just a guy from S-Mart, you know? And think that's part of what people relate too."
The younger co-workers have not been cast yet, although Bruce Campbell revealed they are "good counterparts" to Ash.
"It's a threesome, which is a good number. Since it's not cast yet, it would be silly to fully describe them. But they're supposed to be two very good counterparts. One is a male-bonding situation; the other is father-figure deal, since Ash could have a daughter the same age as this character. Hopefully we'll pull Ash out of his loner-veteran mode and get him back into being a human being again."
The entire interview is pretty extensive. Bruce Campbell also talks about the rules established by the franchise that will carry over into the series, how important Sam Raimi is to the series, how much CGI will be involved and time travel elements. You can read a whole lot more about the series: CLICK HERE