Evil Dead fans were disheartened when Bruce Campbell announced that he wouldn’t be appearing in the new Evil Dead Rise movie and also likely would not be returning to his role as Ash Williams again on screen. However, with Campbell and his Evil Dead comrade Sam Raimi both working on the movie in the background, there are few fans of the horror franchise that won’t be just a little excited to be getting another film sometime later this year. Director Lee Cronin has recently been teasing post-production work on the movie with a post on his Twitter account that read: “New Year, same intense cut! Deeper into the timeline we go on [Evil Dead Rise]. 2022, The Year of the Deadite.”

The most interesting part of the post, as well as all but confirming that the film will be released this year, is the image of the movie’s digital timeline which shows a current runtime of over two and a half hours. Of course there is still a way to go before the final cut of the movie is ready, and this means that there will be a lot of cuts still to make, so fans shouldn’t get their hopes up for something quite that epic in length. Of course the original Evil Dead movies barely scraped the 90 minute mark when released in the early 80s, but with movie lengths now often over two hours, there may not be as much trimmed off Evil Dead Rise as fans might expect.

Evil Dead Rise Has The Bruce Campbell Seal of Approval

If there is one man who knows about the Evil Dead, then it is without a doubt Bruce Campbell and if he says that the latest addition to the franchise is worth it, then fans are most likely going to listen. Speaking to BlairWitch.de, Campbell previously said:

"This one's dark, this one's pretty serious. Good, strong performances. These days it's more about the book. That book gets around, that book is handed around, passed along, people try and get rid of it, they try to bury it or destroy it and they really can't. So this book just keeps popping up, so really it's just another story of what happens if this book appears in this particular group of people's lives and how it intersects. Lee Cronin is a very serious man, he's a very serious director. Sam Raimi picked him because he did a pretty good job on a movie A Hole in the Ground. He's a very atmospheric director and Sam thought, 'Let's give this guy a shot.' It's gonna be really good, we've seen a rough [cut] of it already and it has all the components we need. Like anything, when you see a rough version it just has to be tightened, but we're good. We're in good shape."

As well as Evil Dead Rise, fans of the series can also expect to get their hands on the new Evil Dead video game, which will feature the likeness of Bruce Campbell as Ash as well as many other characters from the history of the franchise, when it arrives on console and PC in February.