FREDDY VS. JASON VS. ASH

[DušMan]

It's something of a Holy Grail to horror fans – a three-way meeting between Freddy Krueger from the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, Jason from the Friday the 13th franchise, and Ashley J. Williams from the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness franchise.

The rumors of such a meeting started back somewhere in the early part of the decade, with later reports in the trades that Sam (Evil Dead) Raimi and Bruce Campbell were getting in on the talks with New Line. Scripts and treatments, all purported to be the "real" one flew fast and furious around the internet, and in the end...nothing happened.

Until now.

In November, DC and Dynamite Entertainment will re-team for another crossover between their respective licensed properties for a six-issue Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash miniseries written by James Kuhoric with three interlocking covers by J. Scott Campbell for #1, and covers by Eric Powell for #2-#6.

And the best news about the miniseries? It's not some new take a meeting between the three. Nope – the six issues will tell the story of the movie that was could have been. One more thing that makes this whole deal interesting? That original treatment for the Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash movie that the miniseries will be pulling from? Written in 2003 by a guy named Jeff Katz (formerly at New Line and now at Fox). Yep – the same Jeff Katz that's currently co-writing Booster Gold with Geoff Johns for DC.

Things just have a way of coming around, don't they?

While we'll be talking to Kuhoric later this coming week, we sat down with Katz to talk about the secret origin behind the story, the movie that could have been, and the comic that will be.

Newsarama: Jeff, let's start at the start – this wasn't a blind pitch at first was it? This was going to be a movie when you started on it, right?

Jeff Katz: Exactly. What you're going to be getting in this miniseries, barring whatever creative choices the writer makes in terms of adapting is what New Line was planning on Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash to be. That was always the plan.

NRAMA: And how did you get involved with it all?

JK: When I started as an intern at New Line, my two goals were to work on Freddy vs. Jason and to bring Evil Dead back. Sam Raimi and Bruce and all of those guys went to the same high school that I did in Detroit, and Sam's family were my next door neighbors growing up, so there was just that connection that I had to the property. It all made a lot of sense. So even before Freddy vs. Jason coming out, I was in their ears talking that if they did a sequel, they had to get Ash involved.

Frankly, it was a bit of a pipe dream. The movie came out, performed really well, and they started talking about a sequel, and from the get-go, we were all saying, "It's Ash time." I did about a thirty page treatment for the potential sequel, turned it in, and they all backed it. Negotiations were started – I met with Bruce and Rob Tappert [Evil Dead Producer] and we came close to a deal two or three times.

NRAMA: So what happened?

JK: The everyday realities of deal-making in Hollywood, sadly. It just never got done. Had those deals all closed, this was going to be the movie. After some time passed and the Ash thing had gone away, we kind of all knew it couldn't happen, and by that time, the treatment had made its way to the internet, so the idea of this movie was out there, really, being supported by the fans for years.

Somewhere in all of that, the New Line licensing guys started talking about doing it as a comic book. So it had been bandied about for a couple of years while I was at New Line, and I was trying to encourage it along as best I could, knowing that was the only way it was going to see the light of day. I'm a fanboy for these franchises, so I wanted to see it produced in some form or another as much as anybody, and lo and behold, here it is.

NRAMA: In terms of where it died at New Line, it was still just a pitch, right? It wasn't that it had Sam and Bruce officially attached?

JK: Bruce was in. We thought we were very close to making a deal on a couple of occasions, and just ultimately, we couldn't get it done. That's just the nature fo Hollywood. You've got to get numbers to work. In this case, they were going to be bringing in three franchises that, because of the way they're set up and the people involved, just made for a very tricky deal, ultimately. That was just the business reality of it.

Creatively, while I can't speak for Sam and his guys, we were all on board and ready to rock at New Line. There was a lot of enthusiasm for it. To their credit, this was something that everybody at New Line "got" very early. Not to mention that there was enthusiasm from the international end, because Evil Dead has recognition overseas. Literally, we tried to make this happen over the course of a couple of years.

It was disappointing at the time not to get it done, but at the same time, I was very proud of the fact that, as a guy who grew up as a fanboy for these things, such a fanboy movie that was really a great big "thank you" to the fans of all the franchises got that close to being made. Now, when I see the comic book – I'm just really proud that it's finally getting out there.

NRAMA: Were you involved with New Line looking to turn it into a comic book?

JK: I think they had always talked about using my treatment as a launch pad for the comic, and at one point – after the Booster Gold stuff started to happen, it was very much the idea that I would write it, but then ultimately, my Fox negotiations were gong on, and it was a victim of my move more than anything. So again, the project was kind of hit by the reality of deal making in Hollywood, I guess. But I think it's wonderful that they're moving on and getting it out there. It's very fulfilling to see it get out there, and I think it's very true to the spirit of the three characters.

NRAMA: On that note, and with the caveat that James Kuhoric and some other cooks will be in the kitchen on the story, give us the broad strokes – what was your story about, and how would they eve meet up in the first place?

JK: The thing that gave us our "in" was the film that brought Freddy and Jason together in the first place, which was Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. It's a pretty well known thing among film geeks that there's a scene in that movie that has a couple of big Easter Eggs in it. In the scene, you're in the basement of the Vorhees house, and the crate from Creepshow is down there, there's a dagger from another movie down there, and the Necronomicon from Evil Dead is in the basement.

So it makes all kinds of sense – Ash is after the Necronomicon, the Necronomicon has the power to revive Freddy and Jason, and it makes a ton of sense that the three of them would come to loggerheads over the same thing. And for Freddy, coming off of Freddy vs. Jason, he's trapped inside Jason's subconscious, hanging on by a string, so the Necronomicon is his ticket out, and not only out, but his ticket to being more powerful than ever before.

I'm not sure if it will be in the comic itself, but I put a beat in the treatment which was a total Watchmen rip-off where Freddy details his whole plan, and the heroes tell him how they're going to stop him, and he says, "Stop me? I did it ten minutes ago." A total Ozymandius play. I will completely cop to that.

NRAMA: You're coming close to creating your own classification of nerd...

JK: It's a wonder I've ever had a girlfriend in my whole life.

But yeah – the Necronomicon was there, and existed in the continuity of the films, so it made perfect sense that these guys would face off over it. And the cool thing is that Jason is being manipulated for a good portion of the story by Freddy, but in the same way, you're going to see a certain level of wish-fulfillment on the Jason end – because of the powers of the Necronomicon - which will prove interesting. The Necronomicon really gave us a really large way to be able to bring these worlds together and create the big action that fans wanted to see.

From there, for the treatment, it became a matter of what are the Easter Egg moments that we could give the fans? Watching Ash fight the jump rope girls, for example. There's Ash versus Jason in the S-Mart sporting good department. The hand from Evil Dead 2 putting on Freddy's glove and chasing Ash. Basically, Ash has come to Crystal Lake under the guise of an S-Mart employee coming to work at the Crystal Lake S-Mart.

NRAMA: And that itself is following the whole rebuilding of Crystal Lake which was needed after the fight in Freddy vs. Jason...

JK: Right – they were remaking Crystal Like into Forest Green in Jason 6 - they're trying to move away from the whole "Crystal Lake" stigma, but yeah – after the fight in Freddy vs. Jason, Crystal Lake was pretty much done. Now they're redeveloping it to make it a palatable place for people to live, and Ash has chased the Necronomicon there after all of these years, and is going in under he guise of Ashley Williams, S-Mart employee to finally end this once and for all – only to find that he's got the two biggest, baddest icons of horror standing in his way.

And hijinks ensue.

NRAMA: What was the tone that you were going after with your treatment? After all, all of these franchises started as straight-out horror, and only introduced black humor or campy humor in their later installments...

JK: It has doses of everything – it's a pretty straight, epic horror match up. A three-way dance, so to speak, between these guys. But – you can't have an Ash movie without Ash's one-liners, and I think everyone wants to see Ash and Freddy talking smack to each other. That's too good an opportunity to pass up. At the same time, one of the things that Freddy vs. Jason did well was return these guys to the roots of what made them scary in the first place – we certainly didn't want to lose that. So the violence and the stakes are very real and very big, but at the same time, it's a lot of fun and crazy, with some over the top action.

By the time these three guys are going at each other in the end on an ice-covered Crystal Lake, all hell has broken loose.

NRAMA: Going back specifically to the treatment – how do you end a story like this?

JK: The whole ending was folded into a larger plan that Ash was going to "kill" these two characters and drive off into Evil Dead 4. The whole point was how to justify putting these characters to rest, and the only way that fans would ever accept it is if they're killed by an icon of equal measure. There had been a debate as to whether or not we should have gotten Michael Myers to fight Freddy and Jason, and have the ending go out with all three of them dying, but we all came to the conclusion that the fun of it was having the hero take the guys out.

For me personally, the best Freddy and Jason movies were the ones where you had a clear hero – like in Dream Warriors or the Tommy Jarvis stuff, going against these guys. For many of the last sequels, the villains were the heroes – you were actually rooting for the villains to kill the kids. This movie was about returning it to the way that it should have been, where you've got a hero that you're rooting for to get out alive

...hopefully with one good arm.

[DušMan]

This past weekend, we spoke with Jeff Katz about his original treatment for Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash, which is being turned into a six-issue miniseries from Wildstorm and Dynamite. Katz clued us in on how the story got rolling in the first place. Now it's time to talk to the writer of the miniseries, James Kuhoric.

Newsarama: James, in terms of Ash, this is obviously the big time - arguably bigger even, than Marvel Zombies/Army of Darkness. Was this something you knew about as a possibility prior to this, or did you learn about this for the first time when the idea of doing the comic came up?

James Kuhoric: "Bigger than Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness,"...wow. I was a huge fan of the MZ crossover, John Layman did a great job of capturing Ash (some of those lines were classic – calling Doctor Doom "tin britches" cracked me up) and putting him in another crazy set of circumstances. I've been following Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash since the movie was first floated four or five years ago. All horror movie enthusiasts were salivating at the possible crossover and I was no exception to that rule. When the possibility came up of working with Wildstorm to bring this movie project to comics, I jumped at it. This is the granddaddy of all horror flicks and it's exclusive to us in the comics industry!

NRAMA: So how did you get roped in? Obviously, you're the go-to guy for Ash, but was as simple as that? Just ask you if you're in?

JK: All the credit for this one goes to the Dynamite and Wildstorm guys. They worked out the details with New Line and MGM to get the approvals done (the hardest part of any creative process) and then went a step further getting Jeff Katz's incredible original approved movie treatment for us to work from.

As for me – they didn't even get the complete question out before I took the gig. I'm a huge fan of all three properties and was already intimately familiar with all the sequels. Working with Wildstorm/DC is a dream come true. Now if I can just get them to let me cross Ash over with Batman or Superman...

NRAMA: Keep dreaming... You've got your finger on Ash in terms of characterization and voice, but what about the other two? Was there a learning curve for you in a sense, to get the feel of Jason and Freddy?

JK: I had the hardest time wrapping my head around Jason's voice. I mean how many times can you say "..." without it getting repetitive?

NRAMA: Would you like a drum kick?

JK: Thanks folks! I'm here all weekend!

Seriously, I felt completely at home with Freddy, Jason, and Ash in terms of their "voices" in the comic. I've watched all the sequels to each franchise literally hundreds of times and know them inside and out. Artist Jason Craig and colorist Tom Mason are equally insane about these movies and the three of us have dissected the issues page by page to make sure every action, reaction, and quote is authentic.

NRAMA: WE've talked with Jeff Katz about the treatment, but from your side, tell us about it - what form did that take, specifically? How long was the treatment, and how much was in it?

JK: Jeff put together a brilliant treatment for the feature film several years ago that made it through all the approval stages. People don't realize just how close FvJvA came to being made. The treatment is a complete movie outline that gives specific detail on the events that take place during the story.

Our part in creating this comic book movie was to take those events, break them into serialized chunks, fill in all the sequence action, and create authentic dialogue for all the characters. It was a daunting task but we're really thrilled with the outcome. Jason Craig's art is amazing and in comics our special effects budget is unlimited so you'll be seeing bigger and badder fight sequences.

NRAMA: That said, how much room do you have to fool around in?

JK: We had quite a bit of leeway to play with the unfolding of the story and the dialogue especially. Jeff's treatment gives the story structure of how the tale unfolds – "Will is murdered by Jason in a brutal bloody scene" and we fill in some details "Jason punches a hole through Will's gut and strings him up to the building rafters by his intestines." Yeah...you're gonna love this one, trust me! Hey, if we are lucky, we'll try to get authorization to print the original treatment in the trade paperback so you guys can compare the comic to the movie outline. Thanks again to Jeff Katz, without his brilliant treatment this project would never have happened!

NRAMA: Okay - broad strokes - this is the hunt for the Necronomicon, right? That was already seen in the Jason film, right? And this is also picking up from Freddy vs. Jason, where Freddy is stuck in Jason's mind?

JK: Damn, who snuck you a copy of the script? Yeah, if you recall in Jason Goes to Hell, we find out that the Necronomicon was in the old Voorhees house at Camp Crystal Lake. Fun story – it really was the Necronomicon prop used in the Evil Dead films! This story picks up five years after the events of Freddy vs. Jason. Freddy is dead and gone, living only in a tiny place in Jason's subconscious. Since he can still communicate with Jason from his mind prison, Freddy hatches a scheme to get the Necronomicon and use its passages to become the master of the dreamscape. That's about all the spoilers I'm gonna give you. Buy the book and you'll find out the rest.

NRAMA: How does Ash get involved?

JK: The same way he always does...seemingly by accident. Ash was transferred to the Crystal Lake S-Mart to take over the lagging House Wares department and get things running smoothly in time for the big town renaming ceremony on New Years Day (they're changing Crystal Lake to Forest Green in a nod to Friday the Thirteenth VI). Of course, little does our wise guy know that the Necronomicon is here and drawing him to it inevitably as it always does.

NRAMA: Putting these three in one book...are there like zen mind tricks you ahve to do to prevent yourself from just geeking out over the whole thing, and not being able to write?

JK: Um...I'm still geeking out over it. I tried just telling myself "this isn't real, it's just a dream, this isn't real, it's just a dream," but editor Scott Peterson called and told me that it wasn't a dream and that he'd kick my ass if I was late with the scripts.

I have to tell you that this really is a dream come true for me and all the creative contributors. We're all such huge fans of the three franchises and as such we all really want to see this done right. We've literally dissected the script page by page and reworked scenes and dialogue so that everyone was completely satisfied with the results. This is a major collaboration and a labor of love for all of us. We hold Freddy, Jason, and of course Ash, in the highest regard and won't settle for anything less than perfection for this series.

NRAMA: With this, Ash will have gone through a couple of high profile crossovers. What makes him so plastic (not talking about his face), or to put it another way, why do you feel he's adaptable to whatever/whoever his adventures throw at him?

JK: A lot has been said about our boy, Ash. I could teach a course on what keeps him going and why he ends up the hero in the end even when he would rather not be involved at all. In the end his adaptability comes from two sources – one is that he really is the Chosen One, destined to fall from the heavens and deliver us from the terror of the Deadites and the other is that he's a "regular big chinned wise guy," not some movie nitwit that does the dumbest thing at every stage of a horror flick. Bruce Campbell and Sam Rami deserve all the credit for making Ash the character he is. Throw possessed versions of his friends at him and he dismembers them. Possess his hand and turn it against him, no problem, he lops it off at the wrist. Ash just doesn't give up and he doesn't take any crap. When you push a guy too far he either snaps or lashes back. And Ashley J. Williams puts the "ash" in "lashes back," baby!

NRAMA: Got it. Finally, speaking of your last crossover, the regular series stopped, let MZ/AoD in, and then picked up again with the ramifications of the Marvel Zombies playing an albeit minor role in Ash's life. Are you looking to do that this time? To use this as a story to, in the macro view, get Ash from point A to Point B?

JK: The Marvel Zombies crossover effectively "resurrected" Ash from his short time on the precipice of Heaven (a good thing because I'm sure they wouldn't have let him through the Pearly Gates and let's face it, Hell isn't big enough to handle Ashley J. Williams). This crossover is a little different because it happens at time in his future. Ash is a little older and a little wiser (yeah...I know...just a little wiser) in this than he has been in the various series leading up to this point. The original movie treatment we are working from didn't take any of the comic book continuity into consideration and literally takes him from his place in S-Mart at the end of Army of Darkness and puts him into the Freddy and Jason world.

To that end, this story is independent of the comic adventures – it's kind of an "ultimate" universe if you will. If you've seen the three franchise movies you can step right into reading the comic without any knowledge of continuity or cannon.

I will say this – read the comic and you won't be disappointed. This is the movie we were going to see presented in the comic format we all love. We struggled and strove to make it as authentic and ass kicking as possible. Grab your boom stick and chainsaw arm before you try to read this, cause your gonna need them, baby!