From there, Evil Dead 2 would go on to spawn Army of Darkness, which De Laurentiis would also produce, followed, many years later, by the Ash vs. Evil Dead TV series.
Bruce Campbell tells Consequence of Sound that it was the foreign success of the original Evil Dead which sold Dino De Laurentiis on the sequel.
One can confidently say that if Evil Dead 2 had died on the vine we never would have seen the rest of the franchise.
With a phone call, Stephen King is able to get Evil Dead 2 a meeting with one of the biggest producers in the history of Hollywood, which eventually gets them the funding they needed to complete the movie.