Back in 2003, a fight greater than Paul vs. Tyson took place at the cinema. It was called Freddy vs. Jason and it solidified the notion horror icons should never fight each other on film. Why? No one wins. At least not if the studio wants to make money. You can’t kill off a popular IP forever, furthermore, fans wouldn’t appreciate the outcome whoever the victor.
Despite that, Freddy vs. Jason has become sort of a non-canon classic for both franchises. It was a fun “what if” idea that actually worked for the most part. Eventually, the entire crossover concept was laid to rest after Fox’s abysmal Alien vs Predator sucked all the fun out of it. They even tried again with Aliens vs Predator: Requiem which yielded similar results.
New Line never tried again with Freddy or Jason, although they did have an interesting pitch. What if Jason and Freddy went up against Ash, the hero of the Evil Dead films? That’s right, a horror threesome; one with a machete, one with knives for fingers, and the other with a chainsaw for a hand? Who would watch? We would, but we will never get the chance.
Fangoria reports that Bruce Campbell who has played Ash since 1981 was once approached to do that crossover, but it was killed as fast as it was pitched over the telephone. The horror publication quotes Campbell from his appearance on Sam Robert’s radio show.
“It was a lovely five-minute phone call with New Line, who we called New Lies Cinema at that point. They were our first distributor of Evil Dead. They gave us a check and that was the only check we ever saw. Ever. So thanks, New Lies Cinema.”
However, he says they were serious until he brought up one plot-defining detail.
“They do Jason vs. Freddy, they do that, they go, ‘How about Jason vs. Freddy vs. Ash?’ Won’t that be great? So we started out pretty immediately being like, ‘Yeah, won’t that be fantastic? Ash can finally kill both of those assholes. Let’s just get it done.’ Long pause. Long pause. ‘Um, you can’t affect anything that happens to either of the other characters. You can’t kill either of them. You can’t even determine what really happens in the fights. So it’s going to be like fight by committee.’”
During the call, Campbell says he pointed out the logic behind Ash being the winner. “Ash is the only good guy of all these horror series. Yeah. So he needs to kill them. He would need to kill them, even if their eyes pop open at the very end and they cut to the credits like they normally do.”
Ultimately, there was no there there and wisely the whole idea was forgotten.
“Creatively, it was bankrupt, and now you’re sharing nothing with three other parties, two other franchises,” Campbell said. “You think they’re gonna wanna play nice? No. We all said no. It was very quick. Why would we do this? To make Ash look like he’s ineffective?”
Today, if the project were to be greenlit, they would have to replace two of the main actors: Campbell and Englund. They have both said they will no longer play their respective iconic characters because of their ages.
Source: Fangoria