Director Lee Cronin's recent Evil Dead Rise proved to be a big success for Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert’s Ghost House Pictures (grossing $147 million against its $15-19 million budget), so it was inevitable that another instalment in the iconic horror franchise would enter development sooner rather than later.
Deadline reports that Vermin director Sébastien Vaniček has been enlisted to co-write and helm the untitled project, which is described as a spin-off. This would suggest that the movie won't be a direct sequel to Rise, but all plot details are still under wraps for the time being.
Vaniček made his feature directorial debut last year 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."
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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.