Evil Dead Franchise in 2023: A Year-End Recap

[MCT28]

2023 was a surprisingly eventful year for the Evil Dead franchise, and with 2024 right around the corner, I thought it would be neat to take a look back at everything that happened with horror's grooviest series over the course of the past 365 days (in order):

• The officially licensed Ash Williams skin (based on his appearance in Evil Dead 2) made a surprise return to the shops of the battle-royal video game Fortnite, having previously been exclusive for a limited-time Halloween event in October of 2022. The fan-favorite later returned in October of 2023.
• Evil Dead: The Game really kicked things off on February 2nd with the "Immortal Power" DLC bundle, which saw the long-awaited addition of Ruby (with Lucy Lawless reprising the role), some costumes, and the "Splatter Royal" game mode.
• On February 18th, images and details about a scrapped sequel to the game Evil Dead: Hail To The King surface online. Originally entitled Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dearborn, the game would eventually change developers and get overhauled into Evil Dead: Fistful of Boomstick.
• On February 19th, the Army of Darkness film celebrated the 30th anniversary of it's United States release.
• In March, horror-themed apparel and accessory company Fright Rags releases their Army of Darkness 30th Anniversary Collection. The company would continue roll out more merchandise based on The Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, and Evil Dead Rise throughout the year.
• On April 5th, Fede Alvarez's Evil Dead celebrated it's 10th anniversary.
• Much like Fright Rags, the other horror apparel company Cavity Colors released a surge of Evil Dead merchandise throughout the year, staring off with an all-new Evil Dead Rise line on April 14th.
• On April 19th, the "Tome 15 - Ascension" DLC was released for survival horror game Dead By Daylight, which saw the release of a new costume for Ash Williams based on his appearance in the Ash vs Evil Dead Season Two episode "Ashy Slashy". Speaking of, Ashy Slashy (the puppet) was also added to the game with Jeremy Dillon returning to voice the character for a short narrated text story, and Ash also got several all-new voice lines from Bruce Campbell.
• Three years since it's announcement, surviving a global pandemic, a cooperate merger, unpredictable tax write-offs, and spared the fate of being a direct-to-streaming film, Lee Cronin's Evil Dead Rise is released in theaters on April 21st, 2023. Met with critical acclaim and bringing in a grand total of $146.7 million at the box office, Evil Dead Rise became the highest-grossing film in the series.
• On April 26th, Evil Dead: The Game "Game of The Year" Edition is released, which allowed players access to all the previously released DLC packs, as well as the pre-order exclusive costumes. That same day also saw the release of the "Whose Your Daddy?" DLC bundle, which brought in Ash vs Evil Dead's Brock Williams and Baal as playable characters.
• A little over a month after Evil Dead Rise hits theaters, Lee Cronin begins a Twitter thread sharing tons of behind the scenes photographs and videos from the production to make up for the lack of special features on the home media releases of the film. After a hiatus, Cronin resumes posting behind the scenes material for every day in October.
• On August 25th, Dynamite Entertainment and Lynnvander Studios announces that the long-awaited Army of Darkness The Board Game, first announced all the way back in 2018, would finally release on November 29th, 2023. November 29th came and went with no game on shelves, and a new release date of February, 2024 was announced.
• On September 7th, the official Evil Dead Rise haunted house opens at Universal Studios Hollywood for their annual Halloween Horror Nights event. The attraction had actually been built for the 2022 event, but had to be rethemed at the last minute when the Evil Dead Rise film delayed it's release.
• After months of silence and rampant fan-speculation, Saber Interactive officially announced that they were no longer continuing development on new content for Evil Dead: The Game on September 19th.
• Pre-order sales went live on October 2nd for the officially licensed Magic: The Gathering cards based on The Evil Dead as part of "Spookydrop 2023".
• On October 11th, Dynamite Entertainment kicks-off their celebration of the 30th anniversary of Army of Darkness with the release of the first issue of a new comic book series entitled Army of Darkness Forever. This series bridges together the events of the post-apocalyptic "Director's Cut" ending of the film, as well as the S-Mart "Theatrical Cut" ending.
• October 23rd saw the Evil Dead 2 version of Ash Williams join Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II and Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 as part of the game's "The Haunting" event. Bruce Campbell reprised his iconic role of Ash for the game (with Campbell having previously worked on the Call of Duty franchise with the Exo Zombies game in 2014).
• On October 28th, Sideshow announces they've aquired the license to create a new series of collectables based on Evil Dead 2, though no actual products are mentioned in the announcement.
• November 9th: While Dynamite's Army of Darkness Board Game got delayed, Lynnvander Studios launched a Kickstarter campaign to re-release their sold-out Evil Dead 2: The Board Game as a special "Deluxe Edition" for fans who missed out on the original release, with minor adjustments and new game modes added to the rulebook, as well as an all-new game board. The campaign blew past their $45,000 goal in 24 hours, and closed the campaign on December 8th with a total of $239,764.
• November 20th: after showing off an impressive Army of Darkness Ash statue at San Diego Comic-Con earlier in the year, Syndicate Collectibles reveals the first officially licensed full-sized chainsaw hand prop replica (based on it's appearance in Army of Darkness), set for release in 2024.

Phew! That's a lot more than I thought when I originally had the idea to put this together. What was your favorite Evil Dead moment of 2023?

 

[Nick el Ass]

Phew! That's a lot more than I thought when I originally had the idea to put this together. What was your favorite Evil Dead moment of 2023?

For me it was getting back to a theater to see Evil Dead Rise, and the biggest bummer of 2023 was what Saber did to Evil Dead The Game by saying they were no longer going to make any content for a game that should have lasted for YEARS.

 

[MCT28]

the biggest bummer of 2023 was what Saber did to Evil Dead The Game by saying they were no longer going to make any content for a game that should have lasted for YEARS.

And from my understanding, that was a decision which came down from Saber's parent company, yes? Something about wanting to focus on developing their own IPs instead of working on licensed games. Although I never had an opportunity to play it, it is very unfortunate that some stiffs in suits killed a once-in-a-franchise project like that in favor of another that might not pay off in the same way.

 

[crinem81]

This one was a pretty intense year!

 

[Nick el Ass]

And from my understanding, that was a decision which came down from Saber's parent company, yes? Something about wanting to focus on developing their own IPs instead of working on licensed games. Although I never had an opportunity to play it, it is very unfortunate that some stiffs in suits killed a once-in-a-franchise project like that in favor of another that might not pay off in the same way.

Saber took the money and ran after selling 500,000 copies in less than a week, and Tim Willits is content living in the past with Quake and that stupid Wild Card Football game. Evil Dead The Game had/has issues, but is still the best asym out there... and what happened made me not even want to bother trying to play Texas Chainsaw Massacre which is heading down the same path. They have said in streams they only have 6 months (9 if they stretch it out) of content lined up with no characters from the movies. I get Sumo and Gun failing, but don't understand how a company can mishandle a game with Bruce Campbell, Dana DeLorenzo, Ray Santiago, Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker, and Lucy F'n Lawless all involved.

 

[Nuisance the Basset Hound]

The EVIL DEAD franchise has a disconcerting history of being abandoned by its respective creators. Sam Raimi abandoned Ash after "Army of Darkness," STARZ abandoned "Ash vs. Evil Dead," and Saber Interactive abandoned the game. All of these actions suggest a vague but distinctly flakey attitude that I find just a tad off-putting.

What's going on with these people? Are they embarrassed to be associated with this type of property? Do they wish they could make "Citizen Kane 2" instead?

 

[MCT28]

The EVIL DEAD franchise has a disconcerting history of being abandoned by its respective creators. Sam Raimi abandoned Ash after "Army of Darkness," STARZ abandoned "Ash vs. Evil Dead," and Saber Interactive abandoned the game. All of these actions suggest a vague but distinctly flakey attitude that I find just a tad off-putting.

What's going on with these people? Are they embarrassed to be associated with this type of property? Do they wish they could make "Citizen Kane 2" instead?

Sam never gave up on wanting to do more Evil Dead, but Universal/Dino didn't want to do an "Army of Darkness 2" since AOD was a box-office bomb. Only then did he intentionally decided to let the franchise rest for awhile and focus on other projects.

STARZ was absolutely willing to support Ash vs Evil Dead, the problem was that nobody wanted to pay for STARZ for that one show. AvED did amazing in home video, streaming, and merch sales, just not on the channel itself (where STARZ executives were really paying attention).

The Game was just a disaster all-around, with having to deal with multiple IP owners for every little thing, not pulling in enough sales, upper-management wanting to change their focus on original franchises, but it was by no means the fault of the actual developers who came across as genuine fans of the series.

 

[Nick el Ass]

The EVIL DEAD franchise has a disconcerting history of being abandoned by its respective creators. Sam Raimi abandoned Ash after "Army of Darkness," STARZ abandoned "Ash vs. Evil Dead," and Saber Interactive abandoned the game. All of these actions suggest a vague but distinctly flakey attitude that I find just a tad off-putting.

What's going on with these people? Are they embarrassed to be associated with this type of property? Do they wish they could make "Citizen Kane 2" instead?

Sam Raimi didn't abandon The Evil Dead, but let Rob Tapert take control of the tv stuff Renaissance Pictures was involved in like Hercules The Legendary Journeys and Xena Warrior Princess and Ash vs Evil Dead. It started out well for Starz who didn't have much around the show, and most people including myself just got the app to watch it... but would dump it when episodes were not airing. The year long gap between season 2 and 3 also didn't help, and when the show came back the writing was on the wall because it was the most illegally downloaded show. Saber Madrid who worked on the game were great, but when they moved it to Saber in the US Tim Willits famously said "making maps is hard" during an interview showing they were in way over their heads.

Mr. Raimi in action doing what he does best torturing Bruce directing.

 

[Nuisance the Basset Hound]

Sam never gave up on wanting to do more Evil Dead, but Universal/Dino didn't want to do an "Army of Darkness 2" since AOD was a box-office bomb. Only then did he intentionally decided to let the franchise rest for awhile and focus on other projects.

STARZ was absolutely willing to support Ash vs Evil Dead, the problem was that nobody wanted to pay for STARZ for that one show. AvED did amazing in home video, streaming, and merch sales, just not on the channel itself (where STARZ executives were really paying attention).

The Game was just a disaster all-around, with having to deal with multiple IP owners for every little thing, not pulling in enough sales, upper-management wanting to change their focus on original franchises, but it was by no means the fault of the actual developers who came across as genuine fans of the series.

Well, SOMEONE is clearly doing something wrong, otherwise AvsED would have had a robust 5-year run at the very least. Methinks you're defending too many people.

 

[Nick el Ass]

Well, SOMEONE is clearly doing something wrong, otherwise AvsED would have had a robust 5-year run at the very least.

That was the plan, but often such plans don't work out... and be thankful we got 30 episodes and 3 hours of Evil Dead related content with an amazing cast and crew with the exception of Craig D. who got fired as a showrunner leading to rewrites and those delays. Many shows made in recent years for (insert streaming service here) don't get a 2nd season regardless of how good they are. Rise I thought was good and not great, but if they do make movies every couple of years instead of every 10+ there will be plenty more to look forward to in the not so distant future.