Way back in the bygone era of 2003, slasher movie fans got the horror equivalent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe when the two greatest icons of the 80’s and 90’s finally got to square off against each other in the obviously titled Freddy vs. Jason. Following that, there was talk of a sequel that would throw Ash, Bruce Campbell’s character from the Evil Dead franchise, into the mix. While that sequel never happened, it turns out there was some discussion about it at the time. The reason it never materialized? Because there’s one villain that neither Freddy, Jason, or Ash could ever hope to defeat. Lawyers.
Speaking with Yahoo Movies about the new Ash vs. The Evil Dead series, Bruce Campbell says he thought if the movie happened, Ash should kill both Freddy and Jason in it, but the people in charge of those properties wouldn’t allow it.
If you can’t kill Freddy and Jason, there’s no reason for Ash to be in it. The problem with that concept was… lawyers run Hollywood. And the lawyers are gonna say, ‘Oh, you can’t kill Freddy.’ 'Well, if you can’t kill Freddy, then you can’t kill Jason.’ So what are we gonna say? 'Well if you two bums can’t get killed, then neither can I.’ We had no control over the other characters.
It’s far from surprising that these were the reasons the movie never happened. Everybody wants "their guy" to look strong in the movie in order to keep the brand popular, and, therefore profitable. It’s no surprise considering in the original film (spoiler alert for a 10-year-old movie), neither Freddy nor Jason actually die, either. If one of them had actually "won" the fight, it would have likely made that character significantly more popular and no lawyer is going to give away potential money like that.
It’s frustrating because that movie could have been great, and we tend to agree that Ash should have won the fight. The fact is that Freddy & Jason die at the end of every damn movie and as long as they had died together, it should have been fine. The human always wins in those films, and Ash is the human in this case, even if most of the human characters in slasher movies don’t carry shotguns or have chainsaws for hands. As long as neither Freddy nor Jason got to outlive the other, that really should have made the lawyers happy. Check out the full segment below
Is this a missed opportunity or was this idea a disaster waiting to happen? Who would you have win the fight of Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash?
