It was recently revealed that Sam Raimi and one of his brothers are planning to write the script for Army of Darkness 2 this summer, and that Bruce Campbell had agreed to star in it even if the film was just "me and a walker fighting some other old guy." In addition to this, Fede Alvarez has already announced that he is working on the sequel to his remake of the original film, Evil Dead, which is out in theaters on April 5th and has received generally positive reviews from critics. But why stop at just two more movies?

The Evil Dead's cast and crew appeared on a panel at Wondercon last weekend to promote the film and, according to Coming Soon, Alvarez "has big plans for the franchise":

"He'd like to make a sequel to this one while Sam Raimi moves forward with Army of Darkness 2. Then, both worlds would combine for a final, seventh film."

Bruce Campbell, who produced the Evil Dead remake as well as starred in the original trilogy, added that he thinks "seven is a nice number." Combine this with his previous statement that he will never say no to Sam Raimi, and it's safe to say that Campbell is a lock in the casting for any future sequels that follow the Ashley Williams story arc.

Since there are two endings to the original Army of Darkness film, it will be interesting to see which ending Army of Darkness 2 accepts at canon. Did Ash return safely (for a given measure of "safe") to his own time and to his job in the Housewares department of S-Mart, or did he sleep too long? While a crossover with Alvarez's films makes the former more likely, possibly with Ash acting as a kind of mentor figure to the young folk who find themselves newly plagued by the Deadites, there's also potential in the franchise for a decent post-apocalyptic horror.

fede alvarez shiloh fernandez evil dead

It will also be interesting to see how well the two different flavors of film blend together. Raimi specifically described his planned sequel as Army of Darkness 2, rather than Evil Dead 4, because of the distinctive differences in tone between the two titled films - while the first two Evil Dead movies were horror films with a heavy emphasis on splatter and gore, Army of Darkness is more a fish-out-of-water fantasy, with the horror elements playing second fiddle to the slapstick comedy and Bruce Campbell's many one-liners.

Alvarez's remake (based on the trailers, at least) appears to be a more straight-faced horror with the primary intent of seriously scaring its audience. However, Evil Dead 2 was more or less a halfway point between the straight horror of The Evil Dead and the slapstick of Army of Darkness, so it's perfectly possible the planned crossover would also be able to strike this balance as well.

Of course, all the planning in the world counts for little without a studio greenlight, so we'll have to wait and see how well Evil Dead does at the box office before estimating the likelihood of a sequel, let alone three of them. But like Sam Raimi and Fede Alvarez, we can always dream. So, what should the crossover be called? Army of the Evil Dead? Or how about Evil Dead: Into Darkness?

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The Evil Dead is out in theaters on April 5, 2013.

Source: Coming Soon