One year ago, Bruce Campbell announced that he was officially retiring from the role of The Evil Dead‘s Ash Williams. In the wake of the cancellation of Ash Vs. Evil Dead, and after thirty-seven years of being bitten, bashed and blown-up by Deadites, he was finally hanging up his chainsaw. At the time, he mentioned that the role of Ash has always been synonymous with physical (and often painful) comedy and as he ages, Campbell simply didn’t feel he could do the part justice like he used to.
But that retirement has seemed kinda busy for a while. It’s been confirmed that Ash is appearing as a downloadable character in Dead by Daylight and there are convincing rumors that he’s set to make an appearance in Mortal Kombat 11, too, both of which would be voiced by Campbell.
But now, it seems that there may be something more substantial on the horizon, as today he tweeted this cryptic message:
September… pic.twitter.com/sUb6eXc2Qy
— Bruce Campbell (@GroovyBruce) May 3, 2019
So, what could this signify? Well, it’s entirely possible that it could be referring to one of the two video game appearances listed above. But it somehow feels a little more momentous than a simple voiceover appearance. Bruce Campbell does have some new TV work lined up – he’s hosting the new Ripley’s Believe It Or Not series in June and is also doing voice work for the Netflix animated zombie series The Last Kids on Earth – but neither of those is connected to the Ash character.
It’s probably too much to hope that Ash Vs. Evil Dead has been saved from cancellation, but might this be a vague hint that a genuine Evil Dead 4 from Sam Raimi might be in the offing? That’s probably wishful thinking, but all kinds of 80s horror icons have been resurrected recently (and proved very profitable), so fingers (and chainsaws) tightly crossed that Ash is returning in style.