Back in 2003 New Line Cinema’s Freddy vs Jason finally hit theaters. It was a huge box office success that had execs developing ideas on how to take the franchises even further. Early chatter was to bring Evil Dead‘s Ashley J. Williams into the fold. A treatment circulated internally, conversations were had, but ultimately the huge success of Sam Raimi’s The Grudge reboot in 2004 turned Ghost House’s focus to remaking The Evil Dead (which eventually happened in 2013 with Fede Alvarez at the helm) instead.

There’s a plethora of other reasons why this never came into fruition (thankfully we have a comic book with the story), but one of the reasons never revealed has to do with control over the characters.

Bruce Campbell, who continues to kick Deadite ass in Starz’s Evil Dead television sequel, “Ash vs Evil Dead”, revealed on a reddit AMA that one of the reasons Freddy vs Jason vs Ash was never consummated was because they would have no control over how Ash interacted with Freddy [Krueger] or Jason [Voorhees].

“Aside from Freddy and Jason, were any other crossovers ever discussed for Ash? Always thought Evil Dead/Hellraiser would be good,” a reddit user asked. Campbell replied:

I’ll be honest with you. I’m not real interested in cross overs. One of the main reasons why ‘Ash vs. Jason vs. Freddy’ did not come to pass is because we couldn’t control any other character other than Ash. That felt like a creatively bankrupt way to go. Not to mention, you’re splitting the proceeds three ways with partners you might not want.

I’ve heard so many behind-the-scenes stories about this potential franchise collision, but this one is new to me. I appreciate this response and understand fears that Raimi and Campbell may have had. Who would be directing the film? Who would be writing it? If They couldn’t have a say in how Ash interacted with Freddy and Jason, what sort of new mythology would be injected that they could never undo? It could create a mess for the Evil Dead franchise – imagine if they killed Ash?! With an Evil Dead remake now out, and a successful series on Starz, it’s easy to look back and think they made the right decision, even though it hurts knowing how fucking cool a Freddy vs Jason vs Ash would have been. The only entity we should be angry with is New Line Cinema who failed to capitalize on the success of the film and instead remade both Friday the 13th and A Nightmare On Elm Street, which is happening once again as of this writing.