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08/18/2004: Enough already!
I've already quoted Pete Vonder Haar ridiculing the premise behind the recently released stinker Alien vs. Predator. Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, XM's entertainment news report this morning suggests that apparently there's a project floating around Hollywood for a movie which would pit Freddy Krueger (of Nightmare on Elm Street and its thirty gazillion or so sequels) and Jason (of Friday the 13th and its thirty gazillion or so sequels, including Freddy vs. Jason) against Ash, the one handed shotgun wielding hero of one of my all time favorites, Army of Darkness.
Can you say, "Bad idea"?
[I have to confess being a bit ambivalent about this one; on the one hand, I think the world needs Yet Another Freddy Krueger Movie or Yet Another Jason Voorhees Movie (never mind Yet Another Freddy And Jason Together Again For The First Time Movie) just about as much as I need a complete collector's set of 24 karat gold plated dog turds. On the other hand, however, I think it'd certainly be a delight to see Bruce Campbell reprise his role as Ash. But it would be more of a delight if he'd reprise Ash in a sequel to Evil Dead/Evil Dead II/Army of Darkness. Don't hold your breath, though.]
In addition to having Bruce Campbell reprise his role as Ash (surely they're not thinking of casting another actor in that role? If they did, most certainly the producers would be disembowled by large mobs of enraged Bruce Campbell fans), the only other advantage to actually makiing a "Freddy and Jason vs. Ash" flick would be eventually getting to read Pete's review at FilmThreat. Incidentally, the FilmThreat message boards appear to be all over this one, though according to the initial posting to this thread 1) New Line Cinema is merely in "discussions" with Sam Raimi (who, apparently, owns the copyright to the Ash character), and 2) Raimi will not be able to direct the project (Raimi, as you're probably aware, has this little commitment to direct a small, limited release art-house flick titled Spider-Man 3).
And damn XM for mentioning this project; I had to go visit the IMDB entry for Army of Darkness, which led me to click over to amazon.com to see if it is available in DVD (of course!) which led to the temptation to see if the entire Evil Dead trilogy is available in DVD (do you even have to ask?), which led to.... Of course you see where this is going.....
Len on 08.18.04 @ 07:45 AM CST
Replies: 3 comments
on Wednesday, August 18th, 2004 at 9:59 AM CST, mike hollihan said
I seem to recall an interview with Campbell where he said that if Ash fights Freddie and Jason, then he has to win, otherwise what's the point?
I'm not really sure I'd like to see this project go forward. Ash/Campbell has three great, classic films. Not a clinker in the "trilogy." Leave it alone. Campbell's older, heavier, slower, more settled now; he's not the hungry, crazy young guy who made those movies.
on Wednesday, August 18th, 2004 at 10:15 AM CST, Pete said
I can't see New Line going for this. Freddy and Jason may be household names, but Ash and the "Evil Dead" movies aren't exactly well-known to anyone by horror buffs.
I'd love to see another Evil Dead flick, but I guarantee you they'd rather do something like Freddy vs. Jason vs. Michael Myers if they could.
on Wednesday, August 18th, 2004 at 1:10 PM CST, Len Cleavelin said
Of course Ash has to win. He's Ash. Ash could no more lose than could Bugs Bunny.
Actually, Freddy vs. Jason vs. Michael Myers makes just about perfect "sense" (within the bizzare value system that Hollywood has); to be truthful, I'm surprised that project hasn't been floated before....