Evil Dead Rise Director Addresses the Possibility of a Franchise Crossover Film: ‘I Wouldn’t Be Shocked’

Evil Dead Rise, which debuts this weekend, is just another installment in the ever-growing Evil Dead universe, which now has a few disparate threads and storylines. But according to director Lee Cronin, there’s a chance those threads could eventually meet.

Speaking to IGN in a recent interview (which you can watch in full next week), Cronin was asked about the possibility of the different storylines within the Evil Dead franchise coming together with star Bruce Campbell and directors Sam Raimi and Fede Alvarez. While caveating that any kind of crossover would be “definitely way off on the horizon,” he said it’s an “interesting concept” that he’s brought up to Raimi.

“I do remember saying to Sam at one point, ‘would it be cool to make an Evil Dead anthology movie where, say, you, me, and Fede each direct a chapter?’ I think it could be quite fun,” he said. “The lore can go in new directions, but the cool thing is that it can point backwards as well. I wouldn’t be shocked if something like that came together.”

The Evil Dead Universe

Cronin made sure to craft Evil Dead Rise in a way that would allow for this by way of a clever tie-in to 1992’s Army of Darkness: he’s previously confirmed that Rise’s Necronomicon is one of the three tomes that Ash discovers while hunting for the copy of the evil book which transported him out of the cabin and into medieval times. So with all three Necronomicons exisiting in the same continuity, it’s not hard to imagine Cronin, Alvarez, and Raimi cooking up a way to bring all of the surviving heroes and deadites together into one giant bloodbath.

The original Evil Dead timeline, of course, started with Raimi’s The Evil Dead in 1981, starring Campbell as Ash Williams. That movie spawned two sequels, as well as a Showtime series that lasted three seasons.

The franchise was soft-rebooted on the feature side in 2013 with Evil Dead. Instead of Ash Williams, that movie focused on a new protagonist, Jane Levy’s Mia Allen. And this weekend’s Evil Dead Rise, meanwhile, stars Lily Sullivan and Alyssa Sutherland as sisters trying to survive the demonic creatures.

In IGN’s 9/10 review on Evil Dead Rise, Matt Donato wrote that it’s “as vicious as Fede Alvarez’s stupendously malevolent 2013 remake/sequel, opens the door for future entries to explore the lore in exciting ways, and owns its place in the series as a standalone horror bombshell.”

Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.