On Friday, October 22, 2004 Bloody Disgusting was sitting on major news that New Line Cinema was in final talks to acquire the rights to the “Ash” character (donned by Bruce Campbell) from Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead franchise (The Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness). By that Sunday, October 24, Ghost House Pictures’ J-Horror The Grudge remake had pulled in a whopping $39 million. Our sources tell us that Raimi didn’t even courtesy call New Line before immediately announcing that he’d next be producing a remake of The Evil Dead, his 1981 cult classic that started his career. The New Line deal died the second the remake announcement hit, which will finally come into fruition on April 12 when FilmDistrict releases the Fed Alvarez-directed reboot.

After that cringe worthy news broke, I was slipped the official treatment for New Line Cinema’s Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash (penned by New Line executive Jeff Katz), which was to be the sequel to their 2003 (August 15) blockbuster Freddy vs. Jason, which pitted A Nightmare On Elm Street‘s Freddy Krueger against Friday the 13th‘s Jason Voorhees. While the movie died that day, Wildstorm, Dynamite Entertainment, and DC Comics backed a six-issue comic book limited series that was released in November 2007 and ran until March 2008. The comic book series was written by James Kuhoric and illustrated by Jason Craig.

But before the comic was developed, Bloody Disgusting was, and still is, the sole source of the official treatment for Freddy vs. Jason. vs Ash, a film that should have become a horror fan’s new genre Bible.