Sébastien Vaniček's Evil Dead Burn is preparing to enter production in New Zealand, and Variety reports that Dune: Part Two's Souheila Yacoub is set to play the lead role.
Yacoub had a small, but memorable supporting part in Denis Villeneuve's sequel as Fremen warrior Shishakli, who sacrifices her life to give her people time to escape a Harkonnen attack.
Vaniček made his feature directorial debut with Vermin/Vermine, aka Infested, which focused on the residents of a rundown French apartment building attempting to survive when an army of venomous, rapidly reproducing spiders invade.
The movie garnered a lot of acclaim, and won Best Picture and Best Director in its North American premiere at Fantastic Fest. It was also invited to the Sitges Film Festival, where it earned a nomination for Best Motion Picture and won a Special Jury Prize.
Whether this new movie will bring back Bruce Campbell's Ash Williams is unclear, but the actor has indicated that we haven't seen the last of the original Evil Dead trilogy's chainsaw-wielding protagonist following the series finale of Starz's Ash Vs. The Evil Dead, so there's a chance he may appear.
"I think the stories will progress a little more now," Campbell said while promoting Rise last year. "We're going to try and do them more like every two or three years rather than every 10 years. It's also the first time Sam is working with his brother Ivan to create an overall Bible that will give future writers and directors an idea of where this thing should go next to potentially tie in some of these stories. So, I think it's going to get a little more tied in as the years go by. But because it's all about the books. It could be a book in the past, a book in the future. It's yet to be determined."
“I told the studio that I wanted to make a nasty film, a film that hurts, from which you come away tested,” Vaniček told Konbini in a recent interview. “I’m going to put all the horror I have inside, it will be cathartic, and if I haven’t ruined my career and I can continue to make films behind it, I will move on to something other than horror!”
There is also a second spin-off movie in the works from Francis Galluppi (The Last Stop in Yuma County), but no details have been disclosed yet.
What would you like to see from a new Evil Dead movie? Check out a fan-made poster below, and drop us a comment.
Written and directed by Lee Cronin (The Hole in the Ground) Evil Dead Rise stars Lily Sullivan (I Met a Girl, Barkskins), Alyssa Sutherland (The Mist, Vikings), Morgan Davies (Strom Boy, The End), Gabrielle Echols (Reminiscence) and introducing Nell Fisher (Northspur).
"Moving the action out of the woods and into the city, Rise tells the twisted tale of two estranged sisters, played by Sutherland and Sullivan, whose reunion is cut short by the rise of flesh-possessing demons, thrusting them into a primal battle for survival as they face the most nightmarish version of family imaginable."
Evil Dead Rise was produced by Rob Tapert (Ash vs Evil Dead, Don’t Breathe) and executive produced by series creator and horror icon Sam Raimi and cult legend himself, Bruce Campbell, along with John Keville, Macdara Kelleher, Richard Brener, Dave Neustadter, Romel Adam and Victoria Palmieri.