Actor Bruce Campbell and director Sam Raimi go together like peanut butter and jelly. The pair have worked together ever since the first Evil Dead way back in 1981. You could say Campbell is like Raimi’s lucky charm. (Along with that 1973 Oldsmobile that appears in all of his movies). And Campbell’s “lucky charm” status has extended to Marvel films. He appeared in Raimi’s three Spider-Man films in cameo roles, and in 2022 he appeared as street vendor “Pizza Poppa” in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. But according to an interview with Comic Book, Campbell says those are all the same guy. Here’s what he had to say:
“The cameos are like, in the Spider-Man movies — if you know anything about the multiverse, you know now, retroactively, I’m in the multiverse now because of Doctor Strange. I’m not a pizza vendor, OK? That would be a massive mistake to think I’m just a pizza vendor, or an usher, or a ring announcer, or a maître d’. It’s called the multiverse, my friend. So, yes, he is the same character, but we don’t know who he really is. It has not been revealed yet. I just got off the phone with the guys at Marvel, and we’re getting close to finding out.”
We don’t know if Mr. Campbell is just yanking our chains, or if he really knows more about these cameo characters being the same person. We’ll throw out this suggestion, though. What if Bruce Campbell is playing a rouge Watcher? Just a cosmic entity who happens to be there at key moments in the lives of superheroes across the multiverse? Yes, we know that in the comics and in What If…? the Watchers are these giant aliens with big old heads. But they can also assume other forms to disguise themselves. We’re not sure if Bruce Campbell is going to appear in any future non-Raimi Marvel films. However, we’d like to nominate him for Beyond the Spider-Verse and Deadpool 3. Who wouldn’t want to see Bruce and Ryan Reynolds on screen together? Make it happen, Kevin Feige!