Summary

• The Evil Dead franchise hasn't forgotten about Mia from the 2013 movie, who deserves a sequel over Ash Williams.
• Mia, played by Jane Levy, was underrated in Evil Dead (2013), and provided a compelling protagonist for the franchise's remake movie.
• While Ash Williams is iconic, Mia has a compelling story left to tell in the Evil Dead franchise.

While two Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead franchise rose to prominence in the 1980s following Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) in various campy confrontations with undead creatures known as “Deadites,” who are summoned from cursed books referred to as the Necronomicon. Campbell’s Ash Williams led all three entries in Sam Raimi’s original trilogy, The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II (1987), and Army of Darkness (1992), but when the franchise was rebooted in 2013 and again in 2023, new characters took on Ash’s groovy Deadite-fighting role.

Even after Sam Raimi stepped down from his directorial slot in the Evil Dead, the franchise has continued to enjoy substantial success both with critics and at the box office. In addition to Bruce Campbell’s three-season TV show Ash vs. Evil Dead holding an impressive 99% score on Rotten Tomatoes, Fede Alvarez’s Evil Dead (2013) received moderate critical success with a 63% score but a solid $97.5 million box office run, and Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise (2023) holds a great 84% Rotten Tomatoes score with a $147 million box office run. With more Evil Dead spinoffs already in development after the horror franchise’s longstanding success, there’s one character who is rightfully due another movie after her underrated outing.

The Evil Dead Franchise's Best Returning Character Would Be Jane Levy's Mia

Jane Levy's Mia deserves a sequel to Evil Dead (2013)

While Ash Williams is certainly the most iconic and beloved character of the Evil Dead franchise, he isn’t the one who is most in need of another sequel movie outing. Rather, that goes to Jane Levy’s Mia, who led Fede Alvarez’s Evil Dead standalone sequel/reboot in 2013. Evil Dead was a box office hit, but was sadly underrated among critics and general audiences, leaving it to largely be forgotten about until the franchise hit the big screen again in 2023 with a new cast and characters in Evil Dead Rise.

Evil Dead (2013) is available to stream on Max.

Ash and Beth are both worthy leads for another Evil Dead movie, but I stand by the idea that Jane Levy was robbed of another chance to prove why Mia is an equally compelling protagonist. In fact, there were even ideas for an Ash and Mia crossover movie after the success of 2013’s Evil Dead, but this sequel never came to fruition. Still, this would have partially implied that Mia would need Ash alongside her in order to have another shot at a big sequel movie, but Evil Dead Rise’s standalone sequel acclaim tells me that Mia could lead another movie just fine on her own.

Why Mia's Evil Dead Return Could Be More Exciting Than Bringing Ash Back

Mia has far more story left to tell

Any time Bruce Campbell appears on-screen in a Sam Raimi-directed or produced movie, I’m all for it. Ash Williams is still one of my favorite horror protagonists to this day, but I don’t think he’s the returning Evil Dead character that is in the most need of a sequel. Ash had an incredible sequel series and ending in Ash vs. Evil Dead, so while I would still love to see Bruce Campbell make a cameo as Ash or – like in Evil Dead Rise – a priest on a recording, there are other characters whose stories should be revisited first.

High among these is Jane Levy’s Mia, whose future at the end of Evil Dead (2013) was just as limitless as Ash’s in, well, every preceding Evil Dead movie. It’s now been over a decade since Mia walked away from the cabin, and I still find myself contemplating the possibilities of what happened to the Naturom Demonto she left intact, what the aftermath was for her when she returned to civilization, and whether another poor soul spoke the incantation to unleash more Deadites from that book. Even more so than Ash, I also wonder whether Mia thought to track down Evil Dead Rise’s Beth after hearing about what happened in Los Angeles in 2023.