Films Still To Come...?

Clive Barker Presents: Hellraiser (The Hellraiser 'Reconfiguring') ...Despite the ability of the original 1987 Hellraiser movie to stand tall in the company of other horror films of the Eighties (and beyond), the Weinstein brothers decided there was the potential, nearly twenty years on, for a remake. October 2006 therefore saw Clive announce that he had accepted an invitation to write the screenplay and to have a role in the film's production. Clive told us that he was especially looking forward to using the extra funding to improve physical effects - so no more Engineer on wheels then..! Variety report that Seraphim's Anthony DiBlasi and Joe Daley will co-produce, with Richard Saperstein and Matthew Stein overseeing for Dimension... October 2007 saw Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury confirm they would be directing and scripting the project, with Clive producing. However, the New Year brought news that the somewhat optimistic release date of 5 September 2008 had now been pushed back to 9 January 2009, followed by reports that Bustillo and Maury had been replaced as writers by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton... and in April 2008 that Bustillo and Maury had left the project altogether, meaning that the January 2009 date had been abandoned... October 2008 saw The Hollywood Reporter announce that the cup had passed to Pascal Laugier (who directed Martyrs and is also set to direct China Miéville's 'Details') to write and direct this 'dream project'... and Clive is now reported as saying it's become a "re-configuring" rather than a remake. March 2009 brought a treatment heading Clive's way for his thoughts, but June sees Clive mentioning that Laugier is no longer directing... maybe good news for Doug Bradley given Laugier's comments in SFX the same month... Another year, another proposal... October 2010 had Dimension announcing (via Variety ) that Todd Farmer and Patrick Lussier would be taking on this project, with production slated for the new year ahead of a late 2011, early 2012 release. However, following the release of Hellraiser: Revelations to secure continuing rights, September 2011 (see below) sees Todd Farmer confirming that he and Lussier are no longer involved... "They’re going to remake Hellraiser One with a lot more money and they’ve invited me to write it – the invitation came from Bob Weinstein – which I am going to do, on the basis that if I don’t do it, it will be done in some way that I probably won’t like! "It’s only that one that I really, really, really care about in terms of its remake value - and it’ll be kind of fun to have the extra money to do the effects and all that cool stuff... "I’m excited about it - actually it’ll be kinda cool to revisit it once and see if there are things we can do to it which will make it significantly better... I am very happy at the idea of having some more money for the cool stuff – I don’t know how much more money, but it’s got to be more than the $900,000 that we had the first time!" 'It's Yours - It Always Was...' By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 20 October 2006 (note - full text here) “When I’m done with Gospels, I’ll begin writing Hellraiser 1 while I’m doing the paintings for Abarat part three... I just wouldn’t be at peace with myself if I gave this [remake] writing gig to somebody else, and I’ve always had in the back of my head what I wanted to do. There are things which are going into the movie which I’ve had tucked in my brain for years. “I haven’t talked to anybody else [involved in the original] about this... I’m going to write it and see how it goes. I’m hoping Doug [Bradley] will be back [but] this will be a different Pinhead." Clive Barker Talks New Hellraiser By Ryan Rotten, Fangoria.com, 23 October 2006 (note - full text online at www.fangoria.com) "There are some areas of the first movie where I think we can be a lot more intense and a lot more scary... It will not be simply a reworking or reshooting of the first picture." 'Hellraiser' Back From Dead By Stephen Zeitchik, (i) Variety.com, 8 November 2006 (note: full text online at www.variety.com), (ii) Daily Variety, 9 November 2006 "If this is gonna happen the last thing I want to happen is A.N.Other coming in and doing something which is violently antithetical to the feeling and the mythology... "I think it’s going to be its own thing; frankly, it’s going to have its own life. One of the things when I went to look at the movie again - I steeled myself, because I don’t like watching my own work - I looked at it and I thought the performances by the women in this are what hold the movie together - particularly Clare; I mean I think Clare Higgins’s performance is fucking magnificent, you know without her…. When I bring that movie to mind, it’s her eyes, it’s the images of her face, cleaning blood from her face, her taking down the hammer from the wall, the expression on her face totally transformed; it was an awesome performance. So what I’m saying is, although the structure may roughly be the same, it will be a totally different movie because it won’t have Clare Higgins in it, it won’t have Andy Robinson in it... "We shouldn’t downplay the fact that all movies work or fail on the basis of their performers, although sometimes performers can be a pain in the ass! We’ll see, I’m excited. "I’ve already begun [writing]. While I’m waiting for Scarlet Gospels to arrive in typed form I have started Abarat Three and Hellraiser One on the basis that everything changes anyway in movies, so I’ll just take a crack at it. I have some reasonably radical ideas; I want to answer questions that people posed in the first one like, 'Who was that old guy?' I think that’s a completely valid question - and I have no answer to why he was eating a cricket, just that it was a disgusting image! ...It feels to me as though one of the things people always wanted is a clearer sense of the mythology that lies behind this world and I’m hopefully delivering some of that... "I think Dimension definitely wants to make this movie and I think they are looking to me to re-freshen the palate and I have some ideas which I think will not violate the mythology, remembering of course that that mythology is hugely developed in the book I’m writing. So, I have the answers, I don’t have to make up the answers, they’re right here in the novel [Scarlet Gospels]. If we actually go down to Hell for any tiny period, I have a very clear idea of what Hell should look like. "I’m just getting on because I know what will happen: Bob will call me in the New Year and say, ‘Where’s my script?’ and I don’t want to be saying, ‘Where’s the paperwork? I’m still waiting...’" Pinhead's Progress By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 15 and 22 December (note: full text here) "The Hellraiser treatment has been signed off on by Miramax. They have in their hands and they like it, and they want a bit more Hellraiser mythology, which is music to my ears - it’s the first time I’ve ever heard that request! You know, where do I sign? But they’ve already signed so that’s fine..." A Spiritual Retreat By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 26 March 2007 (note - full text here) "If they’re going to do this - and they are going to do it - I want to be involved, but I don’t want to be so much a part of it that I feel I’m simply returning to old territory. I feel as though I always want to be breaking new ground, which is the reason I took up painting and wrote the Abarat books. The moment that I feel like I’ve got it all sussed and have figured it all out, I won’t be me. I’ll be somebody else entirely." Gone And Back Again By Carnell, Fangoria, No 268, November 2007 “I will watch over two Frenchmen who will remake it and only because I think they are two very splendid young men who made a fucking great movie. I like them both. I like the movie Inside. It’s very good, very bloody and they are very nice smart guys who have a commitment to the original movie... "I have no interest in turning Hellraiser into game. Firstly, I don’t have the rights so if somebody’s going to do it they can do it. I earned 21,000 dollars from writing and directing the first movie and it was my deal with the devil, god bless ‘em. I’m fine with that. I have no interest in that. I feel like we’re constantly looking over our shoulder, it’s all retro at the moment... I think it’s all the more reason that they remake it; that they don’t take my version of the story. I had some specific suggestions, which I don’t want to spoil for you or anyone else, about how things might be taken up a notch or two. And you know S&M just isn’t what it used to be! So if we’re to do the whips and chains and the hooks we have to do them at a whole new level because I think it's tired material... It’s not just Pinhead, the whole fucking movie has to be scary again. My commitment to being involved was really based on these guys who had a bloody good idea that had nothing to do with what I had in my head. So more power to them.” Jericho / Hellraiser: Clive Barker Reveals All! By Mister Disgusting, Bloody Disgusting.com, 7 November 2007 (note - full text available online at www.bloody-disgusting.com) "It’s not going to be a ‘remake’ remake. I hope it isn’t. I would be disappointed if it was. "Back in the Universal days, there was ‘Son of Frankenstein,’ ‘House of Frankenstein’ and ‘Bride of Frankenstein.’ They made those movies back in the ’30s. Once characters are fixed in audiences’ heads and they like them, why not go back to them? The problem is, can you tell a new story? My beef with recent stories is that they haven’t been fresh. They’ve been tired and worn out. In a way, when you let these things out into the world of cinema, you sort of let them go their own way. It’s foolish to try to control them. There will be tears before bedtime if you do. "There are two Frenchmen who are writing and directing the project together. They want me involved, but it will depend on where they are making the movie. I’m very happy to be involved in some degree. These two guys have a very interesting revisionist take on the mythology, which I like, so more power to them." Pushing The Boundaries Of Horror And Fantasy By Larry Nichols, Detour, Philadelphia Gay News, 16 November 2007 (note - full text available online at http://epgn.com/) "It's being written and directed by two Frenchmen. They actually made a very good movie called À L'Intérieur, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. Bob Weinstein hooked them up with me. They're going to remake it - and radically re-design it. "I am, [OK with that], Andrew. I look at it this way: the film that Clive made is the film that Clive made. I made it my way, and it wouldn't make sense to try to remake it. So what they've done is take the basic elements and reconfigured it in a way that makes a lot of sense - and they have a lot more money. I had $900,000 and 23 days to film it, and was paid the morbid sum of $21,000 to write and direct it." Clive Barker: Raising Hell By Andrew Davis, Windy City Times, 9 January 2008 (note - full text available online at www.windycitymediagroup.com) "Bob Weinstein at Dimension owns the Hellraiser franchise and he has just sent me a movie by a French director whose name I cannot say right now [Pascal Laugier]. If I like this film then they want to hire this guy to write and direct. Right now that is where we are with Hellraiser: searching for the right person to give Pinhead new life. And I should add that I don't have, in principle, any problem with them taking a new crack at the story. If Pinhead is worth a damn he should be able to stand up to a quality re-telling and this is what we are planning for Hellraiser. It is definitely not going to be a remake. It is going to be a complete re-configuring of the original story." Back Into Hell By [ ], SFX, No 177, Christmas 2008 "I fuckin' love Martyrs. I'm glutton for intensity, extreme stuff. Martyrs is certainly extreme, it's a movie that has courage and commitment. [Pascal] is someone who really, really cares about horror movies. I'm supposed to be seeing a treatment soon. I'm not certain but I believe he is going to back to the first movie but not with an obsessed loyalty. He's taking the first movie as a launching board, a rock model, but there are things you can obviously do now both visually and sexually. It was always a sexual movie - the censors told me I had to cut a scene because it has spanking in it. You're telling me I can have the skinning, but I can't have the spanking? It's a different time, so I'm excited." Barker Praises Laugier, Talks Pinhead Design By Ryan Rotten, Shock Till You Drop, 13 February 2009 "My understanding there is that I will receive a treatment for a script from the director – who made a wonderful movie called The Martyrs, a French picture – and I’m supposed to receive that, I think today, actually, and then we’re going to have a conversation and, all things being equal, he will then go away and write the script and I will executive produce the movie and he will direct." Pod of Horror #52 By Mark Justice, Pod of Horror, March 2009 (note: full podcast online at www.horrorworld.org) "Yes, there is an update of Hellraiser in the planning stages, however, I think my role on that will depend on whether or not the narration is one that I can get my heart behind. I have been asked to act as a producer on it and I am going to do my very best to remain involved. At the moment I don’t want to call it a remake because it is more of a reconfiguration that they have in mind. Bob Weinstein, who owns the material, sent a film called Martyrs to me and I was very impressed by it. The director of that, Pascal Laugier, is now taking the reins of the new film and I don’t have any problem with someone talented coming in and taking a crack at it. As far as I am concerned Hellraiser is strong enough to be worth revisiting - I just think that it is important not to do the exact same story all over again." Still Raising Hell By Calum Waddell, Judge Dredd Megazine, No 286, 21 July 2009 "Pascal Laugier is regrettably no longer on the Hellraiser remake. I think Martyrs is extraordinary. "I don't know much more. I mean why would anyone tell me? I mostly discover these things here or through friends who still buy the trades." Twitter posts By Clive Barker, Twitter, 2 June 2009 Alexandre Bustillo: "We are actually writing the script right now and we don’t want to remake exactly the Clive Barker movie. We have met Clive and told him what we want to do with Hellraiser and he said, 'It’s fucking good do it!' We are happy to have his benediction. It will not be a remake. It will still be called Hellraiser and it will have a new Pinhead." Inside Directors Speak On Hellraiser By Blake, Twitch, 11 October 2007 (note: full text online at www.twitchfilm.net) Bob Weinstein: "Julien and Alex showed their incredible creative talent on 'Inside,' and I'm excited to have them at the helm, working with Clive Barker, to create a fresh, suspenseful and scary reimagining of the classic tale." French Duo To Remake 'Hellraiser' By Michael Fleming, Variety, 15 October 2007 (note: full text online at www.variety.com) Julien Maury: "We really don't know. It's quite fresh, this decision to hire these two guys we don't know [Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton]. I spoke with the Weinsteins last week and we're supposed to do a conference call with these guys, and with Clive Barker, to expose their way of seeing the movie. So we are just waiting for the next step because we don't want to be just directors doing another bad remake. We'll wait and see if we stay on board... "The script we originally wrote is not a remake. We tried to rebuild the franchise and reinvent the mythology of Hellraiser and Clive Barker was okay with that. He was really excited about our ideas and what we wrote. And you know, what we wrote was really, really different from the original. We only kept the character of Pinhead and the Cenobites and we reinvented all the rest. But obviously they didn't like it because they hired new scriptwriters, so we'll see..." Enfants Terribles By Stuart F. Andrews, Rue Morgue, No 78, May 2008 Doug Bradley: "Now, I knew nothing about this until I was checking my e-mails in the Marriott hotel in Birmingham, Alabama last Saturday morning. So I gather Clive has made some comment about being asked by Bob Weinstein to remake Hellraiser or re-write it in some ways. Now all I can tell you is I don't know anything more than what everybody else is commenting on and reacting to. I haven't spoken to Clive... "If it's a question of asking Clive to go back and re-explore the territory, so to speak; a kind of look again at areas that he maybe felt he didn't explore this time around, that he could explore this time around..? I don't know, I don't know..." Interview By Dee Snider and Debbie Rochon, Fangoria Radio, 27 October 2006 Doug Bradley: "So let's come to Hellraiser. This has fallen out of a clear blue sky in the last few weeks and I can't comment on what is planned because, quite simply, I don't know. As for my response, mixed feelings don't come close. As with The Omen, throwing more money at it won't necessarily make it better, and state-of-the-art CG may just make it look and feel like everything else. Part of what makes Hellraiser special is the real-time 'hand-made' physical nature of a lot of the special effects. On the other hand, we could finally decide whether the film takes place in England or America: take the British Rail 125 Express out, clarify why Kirsty's boyfriend has an American accent if he's one of those English guys she was warned about and why Julia has apparently trawled the bars of whichever US city we're in searching for bald English guys to club to death and feed to Frank. Now that is perverted. And you need to find performances to match the original - Clare Higgins' Julia in particular. And you'll never better Chris Young's score. "Clive's comments are intriguing because they suggest some kind of re-working, re-visiting, re-thinking rather than just a remake - which sounds interesting, but I wonder whether that's what Bob Weinstein wants. Clive is also talking about it in the same breath as The Scarlet Gospels, but I thought that related more to the end than the beginning. As a fan and a friend, I can't wait to read the book, but I haven't spoken to Clive about it so will make no attempt to second guess him in this. Watch this space, I guess." The Official Speak To Doug Thread By Doug Bradley, Forum, Doug Bradley.com, 16 November 2006 (note: full text online at www.dougbradley.com) Doug Bradley: "To come to your specific question, you bet I’d be interested if I had the chance to play Pinhead again. As to whether I will, well that remains to be seen and relates to the ongoing discussion about the announced remake of Hellraiser. I would add that I think that the announcement of that remake means it’s very unlikely that a Hellraiser 9 will get made and that, whatever else happens and whether or not I have any further involvement, it would be wise to assume that that series is at an end." The Official Speak To Doug Thread - Hellraiser 9? By Doug Bradley, Forum, Doug Bradley.com, 11 January 2007 (note: full text online at www.dougbradley.com) Doug Bradley: "Well, what there’s talk of is a remake of the first one. That’s as much as I can tell you, really, because that’s as much as I know. I know that someone on IMDB has posted that I am 'in talks'. All I can say is if that’s the case, then these talks are very, very, very, very quiet. Nobody’s contacted me about anything to do with the remake either as to say they’re going to be using me or as to say they’re thinking of using someone else. "I would assume that remaking the first Hellraiser film implies as far as the series as it is stands is static. I can’t imagine them wanting to make a Hellraiser remake before they make a Hellraiser 9. I think it’s a 'that must be it, then' sort of way. I think the series as a whole is finished. "[Re. no Hellraiser 9 movie] Don’t take my word for that! I’m just trying to put 3 and 3 together and make 29. But I just assume they won’t. I can’t see why they would want to go back and remake Hellraiser and then wanting to go back and having to continue the series. "So that’s where we are on this. Obviously history is not on my side for doing remakes. When they waste everybody’s time and money remaking a movie, they don’t tend to use the original cast. "But it’s less than two years since the last Hellraiser movie was released so I’m very confident it might not happen. I’m absolutely ambivalent about remakes. Really ambivalent. It doesn’t make it more 'real'. But if they were to offer me the chance to re-do it, if I had the time I’d probably do it. But exactly what that plan is, I don’t know." Crowgrrl's Perch By Athena Schaffer aka The Crowgrrl, Crowgrrl.com, 11 March 2007 (note: full text online at www.crowgrrl.com) Doug Bradley: "Nobody has spoken to me about it, one way or the other. If I'm asked, of course, I'll do it! I am protective of the character and I do care about it. But also, if it meant that, as an actor, I was asked to do it again, but tasked to find new beats for Pinhead as a character to exist - all the better. I think that there are lots places that we haven't really explored with him. One, actually, is right at the beginning of the first film. When he walks through the chains over the remnants of Frank and puts the pieces of his face back together, dabbling his fingers in the blood. There's a kind of childishness there - of putting the jigsaw right, of wanting to recreate the being whom he's just destroyed. It's a beat of child-like curiosity that's right there on the surface and we've never gone back to it. Huge areas just begging to be explored." An Interview With Pinhead By Christopher Monfette, IGN.com, 16 October 2007 (note: full text online at http://uk.dvd.ign.com/) Doug Bradley: "Yesterday I had two more Anchor Bay interviews back-to-back at lunchtime. Immediately prior to them, I intercepted an email from Gary Tunnicliffe, currently shooting in Louisiana with Joel Soisson who directed me in Prophecy 3, alerting me to Dimension Films' 're-announcement' of the Hellraiser remake, one year since this first broke upon me in a hotel in Birmingham, Alabama. Writing and directing duties have now been handed to two French guys, Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo. Whether that means Clive will now have no direct involvement is unclear at the moment. The looming Writers' Guild strike will be focussing minds as well. "Gary's timing is perfect: both interviewers (ign.com and playboy.com) make reference to it so I'm not wrong-footed by it. Interviews over, Gary's on the phone. It's great to hear him again and, as always we're in fits of laughter in short order. Where this new announcement leaves me, I have no idea. I have only repeated in interviews what I have said already that, apart from what everyone else is seeing in Press Releases and on the Net, I know nothing and nobody has spoken to me directly about it." Doug's Diary By Doug Bradley, Doug Bradley.com, 17 October 2007 (note: full text online at www.dougbradley.com) Doug Bradley: "I have no idea whether anybody intends I will be involved in it, but I will do it again like a shot. If it involved taking different beats with Pinhead, that would also be fine by me. I think there are lots of areas that we never looked and never went to. History is not on my side with remakes that don’t intend to use original cast. You know, if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen - and I wish it absolutely nothing but good, if I’m involved or not. I’m not the biggest fan of remakes." Still Raising Hell By Gilbert Macias, Playboy.com, 23 October 2007 (note: full text online at www.playboy.com) Pascal Laugier: "This is a dream project for me. I know Clive Barker's work very well, and I would never betray what he has done. Fans are expecting a definitive Hellraiser, and I don't want to take that away from them." 'Hellraiser' Redo In Laugier's Hands By Borys Kit and Gregg Goldstein, The Hollywood Reporter, 29 October 2008 (note: full text online at www.hollywoodreporter.com) Pascal Laugier: "Hellraiser is a child's dream coming true. I saw the first when I was 13, I remember precisely the shock it had on me because it was so new, so fresh, so it's very hard to resist the temptation to do Hellraiser, you know? So of course. When you come from my culture it's like amazing you're even proposed to do Hellraiser. So of course I felt about it a lot. Right now I have no reasons to refuse the opportunity because if I disagree with the producer I would leave the project. You know, I'm not forced to do anything I don't want. So, let me write the first draft, let me tell you what all the American producers have reacted to the reading of the first draft and I will tell you if I'm in good hands or if I'm gonna leave a hellish experience but in any case, I won't betray Clive Barker's work. I want to do a fresh film filled with a lot of unexpected and surprising things. At the same time, I want it to be connected to the real, original material... I'm talking about the novella and the first film that are very close to each other. "We'll get the chance to have much more money than even Clive had in the first film, so it will be of course more epic, it will be bigger, and I hope that it won't be softer. And right now I trust the guys in Dimension You know? It's all a matter of human relationship. I talk a lot with Bob Weinstein, he cares about the projects, he's a movie buff, he knows a lot about cinema. But at the same time he's Bob Weinstein and he's a very realistic money maker. So it will be a battle, and I hope that a balance will be found so the film will be close to my vision. What can I say? I'm not sure. I can't sign with my blood that I'm gonna achieve..." Northlander Interviews Martyrs' Pascal Laugier - And He Spills About His Hellraiser Remake!! By The Northlander, Ain't It Cool News, 29 December 2008 (note: full text online at www.aintitcool.com) Bob Weinstein: "If I could make all my films from franchises, I would." 'Hellraiser' Redo In Laugier's Hands By Borys Kit and Gregg Goldstein, The Hollywood Reporter, 29 October 2008 (note: full text online at www.hollywoodreporter.com) Ashley Laurence: "It’s really exciting to see Hellraiser considered such a classic that a new generation of filmmakers want to revisit it. Whatever your opinion of remakes, when they’re done right, it’s like re-discovering a great story but told in a new voice." Hellraiser's Ashley Laurence Talks Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 By Tim Janson, Mania.com, 30 December 2008 (note: full text online at www.mania.com) Gary Tunnicliffe: "I then started getting worried when I heard of varying story ideas and grandiose pitches from an assortment of writers and potential directors. What worried me the most was when I heard that a new Pinhead would be required - a reimagining, something more 'now', more 'hardcore.'... "The reality of the situation hit me. If I didn’t redesign it, someone out there probably would. And even though I have been involved with Hellraiser since 1993, it’s no guarantee I would be invited back for the possible remake. Here was talk of French directors and, hey, that probably means French makeup FX designers, right? "I figured, I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t, I may as well at least try to create something, throw my version out there to see if it sticks. At the very least, it might end up on YouTube and people would know that I tried. Maybe tried and failed, but at least tried. So we embarked on 'Project Angel: Recreating an Icon.' " Pinhead Reborn By Gary J. Tunnicliffe, Fangoria.com, 3 February 2009 (note: full text online at www.fangoria.com) Pascal Laugier: "The stills of the new Pinhead you published on your site [Fangoria] a few days ago have nothing to do with the official Hellraiser reboot project I’m preparing. "I’ve never met Gary, and although I respect him a lot, I want to be very clear about the fact that my vision of the character will be totally different. It is crucial for me to make it really clear. The new look of Pinhead is a very important matter to all of us... Right now, it’s just too soon. I’m still writing it.” Hellraiser Remake Update/Clarification By Tony Timpone, Fangoria.com, 6 February 2009 (note: full text online at www.fangoria.com) Pascal Laugier: "I am not going to betray Clive Barker's vision of this. The original world of Hellraiser is so graphic and so well illustrated. I intend to keep that atmosphere that the first film had. But, when you look beyond all the flashy visuals, Hellraiser is a character-driven story. I would describe this version as a twisted romance... "I am currently completing the script, but everything will loook a little different - including Pinhead... It would be a bit odd to put Doug Bradley back in the make-up, wouldn't it? I just cannot see people accepting a new-look Pinhead with the same actor saying the words. But that does not mean I won't speak to Doug about making an appearance in the film...” Demon Days By Richard Edwards, SFX, No 183, June 2009 Doug Bradley: "Having someone else play Pinhead and the fact that they are doing a remake bothers me on so many different levels. That character, much like Robert [Englund] and Freddy, is one that I really worked hard to make mine, and seeing someone else become Pinhead feels like a kick in the teeth. "The studio hasn't asked me to come back as Pinhead, and they really couldn't care less what I think about the remake. I think studios need to be looking for the new Tobe Hoopers, John Carpenters, or Clive Barkers rather than taking a ride on someone else's work. It's cheap, and it's disrespectful I think. "Hellraiser deals with the ideas behind sado-masochism and nothing else. I don't think it would even get greenlit these days when you take into consideration the very conservative stance most studios have right now. I've seen some stuff on the Internet that indicates Dimension wants to soften it a bit, and I guess then my reaction is this: Why bother remaking something if all you want to do is butcher it?" Doug Bradley Talks Hellraiser Legacy By Heather Wixson, Dread Central 16 December 2009 (note: full text online at www.dreadcentral.com) Matthew Stein (Executive Producer): "We see this as an opportunity to reinvent this franchise while still staying at its core roots." Dimension Revives 'Hellraiser' Franchise By Justin Kroll, Variety, 20 October 2010 (note: full text online at www.variety.com) Patrick Lussier: "We [Todd Farmer and I] are officially a go to get it written and we're hashing out the story right now and then we'll go through Bob Weinstein with how we want to approach the massive Hellraiser mythology that exists and how to work within that do something unique. One of the things we didn't want to do... We think Clive's film stands on its own. We think it's brilliant and it made such a specific, dark vision at that time unlike anything that had come before it. So going to do just a remake of his movie but with more money is not something we wanted to do. We wanted to work within the Hellraiser lexicon... We want to pull from the world that Clive created. Specifically that's what we wanted to do. In that original film he opened so many interesting doorways and opportunities that that's what we want to explore - always keeping in mind what he had done and how he did it and just working within that world... "They [The Weinstein Company] talked to us about it about a year ago. We were talking about Halloween 3D and everything about that. We had worked something up for it at that time but then Halloween sort of lept to the forefront. And then a year later they came back to us and said, 'Hey! About that thing that you have, how would you feel about fleshing that out more?' I think we had a different approach than any of the others that they had heard. We wanted to make a grown-up movie, not a teen movie... "If you're going to make a Hellraiser movie, you're basically looking at a franchise that went from Clive's movie up to the Hellraiser-in-Space movie, Bloodline, which had some great stuff in it, actually; the way it goes backwards and forwards in time, and Angelique is such an interesting character..." Director Patrick Lussier Talks The Mayhem Of Drive Angry, What To Expect From The Hellraiser Remake By Peter Hall, AOL Moviefone Cinematical, 15 December 2010 (note: full text online at www.blog.moviefone.com) Todd Farmer: "What’s interesting is when they first started talking about it, the discussion was, ‘Well, we don’t really want to remake Clive’s film because his movie is there, it will always be there, and it sort of changed all of the rules.’ It was so unique for what it was. I can’t remember seeing anything like it. It’s funny, the only thing I can liken it to is the first time I opened up Fangoria; I was like, ‘I can’t believe that this is actually being printed, that people can actually look at this.’ Hellraiser was the same thing, so we don’t want to reinvent that wheel. What we’re doing is sort of modernizing and putting our filthy spin on it. “Some people are upset that we’re remaking Hellraiser. This is the thing: I feel like we did a good job with My Bloody Valentine, I trust me and I trust Patrick. Somebody’s going to remake Hellraiser, and personally, as a fan, I’d rather it be me, and that’s sort of the way I’m going about it. I know that sounds a little arrogant, but what I don’t want to do - and I don’t want to dis anyone - but there have been remakes I didn’t like, and others where I was really interested to see what happened. Remember, we grew up with remakes. The Fly and The Thing, those were remakes and they were fantastic. Cronenberg took the original idea and spun it into something completely unique, and Carpenter did that with The Thing. “That’s what we want to do when we do remakes. With My Bloody Valentine, they literally made [the original] for 40 bucks and a box of smokes. We put some money behind it and did it in that aspect. The idea is to treat it with respect. Hold to the original to a degree, but take it somewhere different, show the audience something new. Clive’s Hellraiser will always be out there, and it will always be on my shelf and I’ll pull it off like I always do and watch it. We don’t want to change that; we don’t want to burn the copy that exists. Clive’s brilliant, why would we ever do that? We just want to add to that world. "The script for Halloween 3D... Patrick and I re-read it recently and we really love it... we’re still hopeful that one day it’ll happen. But all of the focus is on Hellraiser, and we couldn’t be more thrilled with what we’ve come up with." Todd Farmer Talks Remakes, Hellraiser And Halloween 3D By Samuel Zimmerman, Fangoria.com, 20 December 2010 (note: full text online at www.fangoria.com) Todd Farmer: "At the end of July, Bob called Patrick. They played phone tag. We had neither reached out nor heard from TWC since the whole H3D thing went down at the end of ’09. So we were, to say the least, curious... After a week of phone tag, we finally learn the reason for Bob’s call: Hellraiser. Well, this will excite and annoy sections of the horror world. We had actually pitched a take of Hellraiser a year ago. Over a year. In fact, we pitched Bob three movies at the same time. H3D, Hellraiser and Scanners. And throughout the whole Hellraiser discussion, H3D never came up. We still scratch our heads at this, because the script for H3D is just… well… just sitting there. We’re pretty certain Bob never read it. But perhaps August wasn’t the time to ask. Bob was clearly VERY excited about Hellraiser. Plus, Patrick and I love Clive and love the original. With Bob this excited, someone was gonna make it. May sound arrogant but I trust us. "So Patrick and I started talking about our old pitch… and… it changed. It became… hard to describe. It gained a life of its own. As a writer… when the story… or the characters… or both…break out of your head and start doing stuff YOU didn’t see coming. Stuff you DID NOT plan. Well. That’s when the magic truly happens." Angry Hellraisers... Driving By Todd Farmer, Todd Farmer's journal at Wendago.com, 27 December 2010 (note: full text online at www.wendago.com) Patrick Lussier: "I don't know if reboot is the right word or remaining or reinvention, or re whatever. We pitched them a pretty aggressive turn in the story, leading into the world that Clive created in the first one. But not an essential remake, because Clive's film is a landmark horror movie. Why remake something that holds up so beautifully. That story is such a personal story. We talked about doing a hard and fast remake. And then talked about, "What if we take the parts of that story, the parts of the world that you're never allowed to see, mostly because they didn't have the money or the time, and what if we walk into that world? What if we walk into the facets that Clive showed the world, but didn't have the means to drag you in kicking and screaming? "Hopefully we'll be able to look at [talking to Clive] later in the Spring when hopefully we'll have the full script to work with." Drive Angry Director Explains Why Satan's Right-Hand Man Is An Accountant By Meredith Woerner, io9.com, 27 January 2011 (note: full text online at http://io9.com/) Patrick Lussier: "We are into the thick of it, and it’s very exciting. It’s something that when we went in to pitch to Bob (Weinstein), we told him that we didn’t want to remake a classic, and that the original Hellraiser stands as it is. It’s a personal movie for Clive, and we want to play with the world that he has created, and to go behind the curtain behind what you see, and to see more of that world, as opposed to retelling the story of Frank and Kirsty. “The film is so beloved by genre fans, but it’s also so personal... So we want to be very respectful of the source material and at the same time not step on the movie that Clive made." Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer Talk Halloween 3, Hellraiser and More! By Sean Decker, Dread Central, 23 February 2011 (note: full text online at http://www.dreadcentral.com/) Patrick Lussier: "We're keeping it within the world of the box. What the box is and what the box does... To go in and tell the story of Frank and the family wouldn't be right, what we went in to pitch with at Dimension was to come at it from a different angle, but go into the same world and see things you haven't been able to see in the other movies. "We had the contracts changed to specifically say we were delivering an R-rated film. The treatment we turned in, it was like, if you're expecting a happy ending, stop reading now." Different Story, Same World: Lussier, Farmer On The Hellraiser Remake By Ryan Turek, Shock Til You Drop, 23 February 2011 (note: full text online at http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/) Todd Farmer: "For the most part, it’s all about what we want to do. I’m familiar with what the fans want, but - "A lot of times, I tend to think I go with the majority as far as horror is concerned - which movies are good, which ones screwed up - so the idea is to create movies and stories that Patrick and I want to see, and just hope that the majority follows along. That’s the intention, anyway." Todd Farmer Collaborates 'Angry' By Samuel Zimmerman, Fangoria.com, 24 February 2011 (note: full text online at http://www.fangoria.com/) Todd Farmer: “[Hellraiser] is so unique and tells such a personal story so we don’t really see the need to remake it. Our plans are to take the mythology and set it in a modernized world that makes sense in context with the original. It’s not a remake and it’s not a reboot - it’s something else entirely. But we are definitely planning for our Hellraiser to be very R-rated so fans shouldn’t be worried there.” Todd Farmer Gives Updates on Halloween III, New Hellraiser Flick By thehorrorchick, Dread Central, 25 May 2011 (note: full text online at www.dreadcentral.com/) Patrick Lussier : "Doug is pretty critical and key to the whole history of the franchise, just his face and how it looks covered in the pins and his voice, just his presence. That's something that we're working through with Dimension right now, about the uniqueness in the approach to Pinhead and how he'll appear and how he'll resonate with the past and how he'll be presented to the future." New Hellraiser Movie Defies Explanation And Features Elements Of Origin, Says Drive Angry Duo By Terri Schwartz, MTV Movies Blog, 25 May 2011 (note: full text online at http://moviesblog.mtv.com/) Todd Farmer: “We developed several versions for Dimension, but in the end we never saw eye to eye creatively... Originally what they wanted was epic and dark, rated R. It was in our contract. So... if WE do 'Hellraiser', it’s rated R; if they want to do PG-13 then they have to get rid of us... To me it seems impossible to do 'Hellraiser' as a PG-13.” Todd Farmer Talks Halloween 3D And Hellraiser! By BC, Bloody Disgusting, 7 September 2011 (note: full text online at http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/26223) Todd Farmer: “Lussier and I are no longer attached to Hellraiser... We pitched, sold and wrote a take, then we developed a couple additional approaches. In the end we never fully connected creatively. Nothing wrong with that. Happens all the time. We wish Hellraiser and TWC the very best and look forward to what they come up with... My only access to Clive was through Twitter thus I tweeted him a few times but never heard back. Understandably.” Hellraiser Remake & Halloween 3D Updates By Deth Banger, Horror-Movies.ca, 14 September 2011 (note: full text online at http://www.horror-movies.ca/2011/09/hellraiser-remake-halloween-3d/) Hellraiser : Revelations ...Ah, 'Revelations'... now that's a catchy little name... Not the long-threatened Hellraiser remake discussed above, this one is a low-budget entry to the ranks of the sequels, newly-announced and with astonishing haste in the shooting schedule... Gary Tunnicliffe, the FX maestro of many Hellraisers past, has scripted, with casting details emerging sporadically since the initial news broke... including Doug Bradley not returning as Pinhead (with his role now reportedly taken by Stephan Smith Collins)... Devon Sorvari has been announced as playing Sarah Craven (after a first announcement that Peta Wilson had taken the role) with other characters being cast named as her husband Ross, their children Emma and Steven, Steven's friend Nico and a collection of cenobites, including "Pseudo-Pinhead: Tall and very thin, deathly pale, in his early 20s... This pseudo pinhead is such a devoted servant of Pinhead, he mimics his appearance as closely as possible, and revels in the pain that leads to his pleasure..." Following a one-night theatrical screening in Los Angeles which garnered less than rave reviews, Arc Entertainment now look to be handling marketing for this under the Dimension Extreme banner. Gary Tunnicliffe : "Obviously the Internet has lit up like a Christmas tree after information about Hellraiser: Revelations went public and I felt to not have something on this site seemed a bit 'weird' and remiss to all the people who are good enough to follow what I'm up to. "I don't want to say too much at this juncture, but I will say that I was honored to be asked to write the script (which was actually based on my original pitch for the Hellraiser remake). "I have always loved the intimate nature of the first film, it always struck me that it would probably make an amazing stage play, I have always loved that it is about people, not necessarily about Cenobites... perhaps that was the problem with some of the latter films? "So my idea was to create something more like that, a story about the human condition, about dysfunction, about being disillusioned etc... all the things that breed desire and therein the problems that it leads to. "I have always thought that the first Hellraiser (The Hellbound Heart) was a mob story - Man makes deal with the mob, then runs away, seeks refuge with a sympathetic, lovelorn woman, betrays all around him and then he gets his just desserts by being sold out to the mob... in this case represented as a quartet of leather bound, sadomasochistic angels of ultimate experience (thank you Clive Barker). "Hellraiser: Revelations is very much in that vein, I think it's definitely another mob story. "Myself and the Director (Victor Garcia) have had some great discussions and he comes from exactly the same point of view as me, we share a deep love of the first film...as well as a sincere desire to imbibe this franchise with a powerful, gut wrenching, modern day edge. "So... stay tuned, keep an open mind, try not to judge us too harshly until you see the final result... fingers crossed, we might just surprise you. "Cheers, "G" Hellraiser: Revelations By Gary Tunnicliffe, www.garyjtunnicliffe.com, 24 August 2010 Doug Bradley : "I know that many of you will have caught up with the sudden burst of Internet chatter about a new Hellraiser film going into production, and will be keen to know whether I've been approached to play Pinhead again, so here's the deal... "I have been approached just in this last week (w/b 16 August) regarding a proposed new Hellraiser film. This is not the 'remake' which has been endlessly discussed for the last three years. With the working title Hellraiser: Revelations, it will be the ninth film in the series. I would stress that I have had no contact from, or negotiations with, anyone from Dimension Films, rather, these contacts have been by way of private discussion with individuals involved with this project. "Following these discussions, and after reading the script and giving it due consideration, I have decided not to participate. The ink is barely dry on the script, and it is scheduled to be in front of the cameras in two weeks time and in the can by the middle of next month (September 2010). The miniscule shooting schedule is more than matched by the budget. "Whether or not this means that somebody else will be stepping up to play Pinhead, I have no idea. I guess we can watch this space together...... "One way or another, this does not seem to me to represent a serious attempt to revive the Hellraiser franchise. However, I wish everyone who will be directly involved in the making of this film, good luck with it." Statement From Doug Bradley On Hellraiser: Revelations By Doug Bradley, www.dougbradley.com, 22 August 2010 Candyman - The Remake ...A Candyman remake... maybe even with plans for a white actor in place of Tony Todd - whaaat? "I don't think I have anything to tell [on the Hellraiser remake]. I even heard - and this is as recent as three days ago - that the same thing is happening with Candyman..." Interview With Clive Barker By Rick Kleffel, 1 and 2 September 2008, The Agony Column (note - full audio online at www.bookotron.com/agony/) Tony Todd: "When I first heard it... like everyone has said, it's ridiculous. The whole point is that he was a former slave and it's an interracial love story. But they own the property and they're entitled to do what they want... "Some of my agents feel [the remake news] could be a move to see how much interest there is out there for it. Maybe we could put our heads together and do something modern... "If they do it, I'm willing to do one more as a final payoff or good-bye. I wouldn't just phone it in, I'd want to commit to it... "You can only go to the well so many times. I was never interested in a versus movie. [Another studio] actually suggested to me a Candyman vs. Leprechaun at one point - I'd kick him in his ass! Look, it's about profitability, most of these movies now are reinventions but there's no longevity. I could live forever with the thought of what we did with the first two Candyman films just fine." Tony Todd On The Candyman Remake By Ryan Rotten, ShockTillYouDrop.com, 10 September 2008 (note: full text online at www.shocktillyoudrop.com) Tony Todd : "Maybe five years ago I would be worried about a Candyman remake, but I am just so busy now that I can’t really worry about it anymore. Now, if I was invited to be a part of it, then I would be honored. If someone felt like they wanted to go in a different direction without my input, then that’s okay, too, but I think I’d really be able to tap into the energy of what that character was more than anyone else." Tony Todd Talks Dark Christmas, Hatchet 2, and Candyman IV By Heather Wixson, Dread Central 18 December 2009 (note: full text online at www.dreadcentral.com) Candyman IV ...not that we're supposed to call it 'IV'. Tony Todd broke word of the latest 'standalone' Candyman project in 2004 with the promise of Barker's involvement, if only as 'story consultant and an executive producer'. Indeed, Clive may well need to be on board to dispel the ghosts of Candyman: Day Of The Dead and breathe new life into the struggling franchise, and so far Tony Todd is the only person we've ever heard talking about it... Tony Todd : "Right now we’re prepping a fourth Candyman film. It’s going to be big-budget - we’re looking at $25 million. There have been a lot of successful horror films made since we did the last movie, and Clive and I have had three or four meetings about the film, talking about storyboarding ideas. "It’s going to be set in New England, and the initial image will be of Candyman in a blizzard. The story is about a double identity. I can tell you that it’s set at an all-girls college where there is a descendant of Candyman - a professor who doesn’t actually know who or what Candyman is." Tony Todd Talks Candyman 4 and Final Destination 3 By Calum Waddell , Fangoria.com, 9 March 2004 (note - full text online at www.fangoria.com) Tony Todd : "I'm reaching out to Clive Barker for another trip to the well. With the advent of popularity in Horror currently, I think the time is right for the definitive version. I certainly want a crack before a current rapper gets a crack at inheriting the mantle." Interview: Tony Todd By Clint Morris, Moviehole, [3] November 2003 (note - full text online at www.moviehole.net) Tony Todd : "There are rumors about another Candyman; it’s a ‘vs.’ film. I don’t know if it’s going to be Chucky or who!” Tony Todd Talks Candyman 4 And More! By Sean Decker and Jack Ulrich, Fangoria.com, 8 June 2005 (note - full text online at www.fangoria.com) Tony Todd : "This is the third time I’ve worked with Deon [Taylor], and I definitely think he’s an up and coming talent in the horror industry. We’ve been talking recently about some of our ideas, including wanting to revive the Candyman franchise and keep the legend moving forward... "Deon and I have some tricks up our sleeves, too, for Candyman so just sit tight for that because you never know what will happen..." Tony Todd Talks Dark Christmas, Hatchet 2, and Candyman IV By Heather Wixson, Dread Central 18 December 2009 (note: full text online at www.dreadcentral.com) Rawhead Rex - The Remake ...Is there no end to remake ideas floating around...? "There's even been talk about remaking a really wretched movie called Rawhead Rex which was based upon, again, one of the stories in the Books of Blood. A horrible movie. Now there's a point where I think, 'Yeah, that would be a great idea!' You know, it's actually a story which could make a damn good movie." Interview With Clive Barker By Rick Kleffel, 1 and 2 September 2008, The Agony Column (note - full audio online at www.bookotron.com/agony/) Jericho Movie ...We hear that Clive has plans to team up again with Ryuhei Kitamura to create a movie of 2007's Jericho. No comment from Clive just yet so watch this space... The Damnation Game ...After languishing in our 'TV Still to Come...' section as a potential mini-series for several years, The Damnation Game was unveiled in April 2001 as a big screen adaptation. Continuing Seraphim's unerring ability to sell scripts, Phoenix Pictures paid "a mid-six-figure" number for the rights to Barker's debut novel, with Barker producing and John Heffernan working on the adaptation. Warner Bros. then picked up the picture, bringing along some interesting names to the deal. Big name rumours spread of the inclusion of Paul Newman and Sean Connery - with Connery producing alongside Barker, and a 'source' being widely quoted on the prospect of more names being attached to the $40m project, "There has been a lot of financial wrangling to get Newman and Connery at a cut rate with a share of the profits to come." Ed Harris, Kim Basinger and Dame Maggie Smith were also reported to be considering supporting roles in the venture, which was to be shot in New York and Connecticut. Barker, however, remained suitably wary of such rumours (see below). Three years on, personnel changes at Warner left the project without support there, but December 2006 saw Seraphim's Anthony Diblasi having turned in his version of the script. Further drafts from Diblasi through 2007 have been positively received by Phoenix and Clive remains highly confident about this adaptation of his first, and certainly one of his best, novels... "[The Damnation Game will not] wink at you, in the way that so many horror films today do, with a comedic or semi-comedic self-referential tone... we will do our damndest to scare people in the old fashioned way. "There's so many books I've written where I just know, 'No way is this ever going to be a film' but this one has the right size and feel. You don't have to cut out too much of the story, which in this case is a Faust story - without the Devil." Interview By [ ], Daily Variety, 4 April 2001 "Warner Brothers, as you know, are doing Damnation Game... I don't know where [the rumours of big names] came from - I assume those names came from Warner Brothers... They worried me! I think at one point I saw Paul Newman and I saw Sean Connery... I don't think either of them are very likely, frankly! We have a $45 million movie here! "It's really hard to see where these things come from. Obviously somebody's given some thought to this - it isn't just names pulled out of a bag... it was a weird thing." Nips And Tucks, Tits And Fucks By Phil & Sarah Stokes, 10 July 2001 (note - full text here) "I chose him, so yes [I'm happy with the screenwriter]. His name is John Heffernan. He's a young guy who I think is just amazing. Tremendous. So, I think he's a tremendous guy, a tremendous writer and I think he's going to do a great job with Damnation Game." Clive's Busy, Busy, Busy, Busy Year By Smilin' Jack Ruby, 13th Street, 12 July 2001 (note - full text online at www.13thstreet.com) "You know, there are lots of elements in my work that are very difficult for people, so difficult at times I look back and I think this is hard stuff. I'm getting the script for Damnation Game today. Warner Bros. is making the movie Damnation Game and John Heffernan who wrote the script that we're turning in today says it is very, very dark. So I went back and read the book and I thought shit, this is a very grim book. And this comes out of my psyche the same way the colourful paintings for Abarat come out of my psyche. It's all a part of Clive Barker. It would be hard to say that I like Damnation Game I don't know that I do. Even though I'm the author of it. It's way grim, you know." Confessions By Craig Fohr, Lost Souls, 22 February 2002 (note - online at www.clivebarker.com) "Damnation Game has just been turned in as a finished script to Warner Bros. and they seem very encouraging about this being something that they want to make. I don't know whether that will go into pre-production this year but it's moved along much faster than we thought it was going to." Open Roads... What Price Wonderland? By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 3 April 2002 (note - full text here) "I can't speak about a specific writer right now, but Warner Bros. are bringing in the writer of a great horror movie of yore to come and do a final draft of Damnation Game. I hate to be so coy about this, but if he gets to do it, I feel he will bring it on home and then we can make that movie." Confessions By Craig Fohr, Lost Souls, 1 August 2003 (note - full text online at Lost Souls - see links page) "Well, it seems like it's not going to be at Warner Bros. anymore. It's definitely going to be a movie; curiously, though it started earlier than the other [projects], it's further off than the others. Just because of Warner's change of people - the people who bought it were removed from office, for various reasons which I can't talk about, and they were gone. One day we called them up and they were gone! I know it sounds weird, but it really is the way this town works and there are so many reasons why people are removed and there's so much politics, so much politics." In Anticipation Of The Deluge: A Moment At The River's Edge By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 1 and 12 July 2004 (note - full text here) "We also have Damnation Game being scripted – though I think it will be a year or two away. Yeah, I think it is a good one and I’m excited by that." Clive Barker On The Phone By [Thomas Hemmerich], That's Clive!, 29 March 2005 (note - full text online at www.clivebarker.de) "With Damnation Game, we still have a lot to do and it's a difficult novel to adapt. There's a lot of internal stuff in it; of course everybody remembers 'the zombie who doesn't know he's a zombie' and all that stuff, but in actual fact there's a lot of psychological stuff that is much harder to get on the screen." Weird Fantasy By Joe Nazzaro, Starburst, Special No 76, July 2006 "[The second draft is] tremendous, and it’s been delivered to Mike Medavoy at Phoenix and I guess he’s reading right now and we’ll see what his response is. I’m incredibly proud of Mr Diblasi – you know this is a guy who came in to Seraphim what, four years ago, and now he’s a fully-fledged writer and he’s soon to be writer/director and I am incredibly impressed." A Spiritual Retreat By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 26 March 2007 (note - full text here) John Heffernan : "This isn't Devil-with-a-pitchfork kind of stuff, it's more visceral. It's about the worst kind of hell: the evil that men do to one another. "After a time, you start to sympathize with the antagonist, too. After all, the Devil always makes good on his bargains. It's man who is always trying to get out of the deal." Damnation Game Signs On Scribe By [ ], Really Scary.com, 15 May 2001 Anthony Diblasi : "I've had the privilege to work along side Clive creatively for several years now, and that in itself has helped me immeasurably in adapting his work. The themes that run though Clive's writing, from his short stories, plays to his novels, connect with me personally. So no matter how much I change the structure for the adaptation, for me it still rings faithful, because I've stayed true to the themes. I've been working on Damnation Game for many years now as a producer, and it has always been a tough adaptation. The characters are very complex, and it often becomes difficult to capture those complexities for the screen. I feel I was lucky when I found a way into the story, or more specifically, the voice to tell the story properly. The biggest challenge for me so far has been length. Keeping the script to a manageable page count for an audience. It may seem like a small problem, but it's an important part of the process, there's so much to tell, and being able to tell it in an economic way is crucial. But I'm getting there, and so far it's been a very exciting journey for me." Damnation Game By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 3 April 2007 Joe Daley : "The strike unfortunately put the pin on a lot of our material. However, Damnation Game is now going out to directors. That one has not been held up." Fear Factory By [ ], SFX, No 168, April 2008 The Abarat Trilogy ...April 2000 saw the announcement of a deal with Disney for the film and ancillary rights to the as-yet-unfinished Abarat Series. Apparently the offer of "an island" at Disneyland was the clincher in choosing Disney over other suitors... The first two books were to form the basis of the first of three planned Disney movies. Whilst discussions continued over the question of live action/CGI, so it became clear that the originally suggested release date of the first movie as 'sometime in 2004' was looking rather ambitious. But progress was certainly made on the project, with John Harrison (who directed the Dune mini-series for TV ahead of writing the Children of Dune mini-series) completing the screenplay for the first Abarat movie... Clive's original deal also included a percentage of the standard Disney merchandising frenzy - we were all prepared for the burger chain freebies as well as the planned Disneyland ride. But if all this was intended to be Clive's way of bringing a darker twist to the 'Disneyfication' of the world he's often talked about, it has become clear that it will not now be Disney itself which finally produces these movies. Any potential movie projects now remain on hold unti the completion of all five books... "Since I first read C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, I've wanted to create a fantasy world of my own, filled with characters and creatures who originated in my waking dreams. A world I could describe in both oil paint and in words, which would be the setting for a series of epic adventures. Abarat is that world. My Oz, my Narnia, my Never-land. I believe we - that is, HarperCollins and myself - will be making books resembling nothing that has ever been produced before." HarperCollins To Publish Children's Fantasy Series by Clive Barker By [ ], www.writenews.com, 26 April 2000 "This is my Wizard of Oz, my Narnia, this is a world I love to lose myself in and where I'll spend most of the next nine years working on these films." Disney Magics Up Girl Rival to Harry Potter By John Harlow (Los Angeles), The Sunday Times, 21 May 2000 "Eventually, it came down to three or four people who really had the size. Not just the size of funds to buy it, but also the size of organization to really exploit all the possibilities that it offered... I wanted this at Disney because they have the mechanism to make it into something extraordinary. Also, they think visually, and here I was with a large number of paintings, a lot of design work already done." Clive Barker Gives Disney A Nightmarishly Edgy Kid Flick Rep By Kathleen Tracy, KidScreen Magazine, May 2001 "It's a quartet of novels I wrote for HarperCollins, and I painted 220 oil paintings, some of them huge, some of them 13 feet across to go with these books as illustrations. I suppose the closest you could come to it is the Narnia books. Disney decided they wanted to buy the world for films, for the theme parks, for TV... In other words where Disney are going to be, they want Abarat to be. "It's completely the Holy Grail. It's all that I could have wanted and it's a way for me to have the creativity that I want. Write the books, paint the pictures, without being bothered by everyone. And it's tremendous to think I'm going to walk down Disneyland's Main Street into Abarat Land in maybe five years time. It sounds pretty cool! "None of those [other projects] are going to be as important as Abarat. I want to show that Disney's faith in me is justified. For three years, Clive Barker is giving himself over to Abarat, and everything that is associated with Abarat will be part of Barker's purview." Lord Of Illusions By [ ], SFX Magazine, Issue No.65, June 2000 [Peter Schneider's departure from Disney] "is regrettable - he was a good guy - but there's a lot of good guys there and we've had no bad experiences there so far, they've been really super, so I'm cautiously optimistic that it's all going to work out well." Nips And Tucks, Tits And Fucks By Phil & Sarah Stokes, 10 July 2001 (note - full text here) "I've declined to do an art show this year because most of the paintings are related to Abarat, and although the actual objects belong to me, nevertheless, Disney is going to keep them in their vaults until the movie comes out, just because I want to protect them. Disney has an amazing vaulting system. Disney has been very protective of their artwork over the years. They are going to protect them and when the movie comes out I think I am going to exhibit the paintings around the country and probably sell them at the same time. But my first priority is not the sale but the exhibition of them. I want to hold all the paintings together. I don't want to sell them off in bits and pieces and then find that when we get the movie out there, and all four Abarat books are delivered, and I want to have a huge exhibition, that I can't recover all the paintings because they are in private hands. I prefer to wait and get all the pictures out there at the same time. And then it's going to be quite an exhibition. I don't know quite where we are going to do it yet. "One of the things is obviously we can't exhibit everything, but I want to put up as many pictures as possible. And we are talking big pictures. I mean the biggest of them is 13 feet by 9 feet. A lot of them are 4 feet by 5 feet I mean they're big guys. I want to make sure this is done properly. And the great thing about Disney is that they are really enthusiastic about doing this properly. So I think this is going to be a good marriage of minds." Confessions By [Craig Fohr], Lost Souls Newsletter, September / December 2000 (note - interview took place 25 August 2000) "I shall write four novels, as I am contracted to do, which will constitute the first arc - if this was Star Wars, it would be the first three movies - and Disney will take from those four books the material to make three movies. They may also take material to do TV, games, what have you. "What they've done is something they've never done before: they've bought a world from the inside out. They came out and saw a house full of paintings, and heard me talk about the world and the characters and the philosophies, and they said, 'We want to exploit this material in every medium we're in, from theater through parks, through toys, whatever.' And that was my dream for this material. It's a wonderful marriage." The Dark Backward By Philip Nutman, Fangoria, No 200, March 2001 "The Disney vision is very particular and they're going to take this and run with it and I don't know if even they know where that race is going to end. I know that they want to take the first two books as the subject of the first movie and I think that makes sense because there are certain narrative arcs which actually complete themselves within the first two books so there's a sense of some narrative satisfaction to be had - you know, a couple of minor villains die. You got to have a sense of 'Hey, we've got rid of a few of these guys, got to throw some of these guys to the lions'. So I think they're right to take the first two books, because I want this movie to be - you know what Peter Jackson did with the Lord Of The Rings, if it could be that, or even a part of that, then that would be fantastic…" Open Roads... What Price Wonderland? By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 3 April 2002 (note - full text here) "Yeah [the films will be G-rated]. Not even PG. Well, there - I said that. But the rules are changing almost daily. We have a new president. We have all kinds of new attitudes in play. I don't know. Would I be able to release Hellraiser as an R-rated movie now? I don't think so. I think we'd probably have to cut it. We have to watch... "Absolutely [I can envision Abarat games]. And so can Disney. It may even be that the first thing we do are games. We talked about that." Barker Worse Than His Bite? By [ ], www.pcgameplay.co.uk, 19-23 February 2001 "I said [to Disney], 'In one sense, of course, I'm incredibly possessive, but in another sense, I'm writing the books and there they are and nobody can take the books away from me. So if you guys want to make the books blue rather than red and you want to tell a different kind of story set in my world, I don't have a problem with that. And rightly that's an enrichment of the world. Anything that anybody does is an enrichment of the world... Does it bother me? No, go to it.' " Imagining New Worlds By Robert Starner, Lambda Book Report, Vol.10, Issue 3, 1 October 2001 "I always have in the back of my mind if somebody was wanting to make a movie of this I want to make sure that the information is somewhere in either the text or the illustrations that helps bring this thing to life. But having made movies myself, I certainly didn't come to Abarat thinking, 'Gee, I want to make this movie.' In actual fact, part of me feels as though it's wonderful that Disney is taking on the challenge of making these movies because it frees me to do what I really want to do, which is to continue to write Abarat books." New Children's Book From Author of 'Hellraiser', 'Pinhead' By Seamus O'Regan, transcript from Canada AM, 26 December 2002 "Showing those pictures [to Disney] at the time was one of the greatest experiences of my life. What was wonderful was having these folks come into my house and look at the work. And when they came in through the door, instantly they got it. Harry Weinstein was extraordinarily articulate and wonderful. Mr Katzenberg was remarkable. He sat on the floor with his legs crossed and said, 'Tell me the story.' "It was really quite an exciting time in my life. I was showing myself as I really am, not the horror meister they had often invited into their ranks, but somebody who dreamt with his eyes open. I think they liked seeing that part of me, and I liked them seeing it." Abarat For HarperCollins (US), The Books Of Abarat.com, Fall 2002. "Ben [Smith] said, 'There is a world here, and people are looking for worlds; they're looking for places to play. Why don't we talk to the studios the way you've just talked to me? Keep this very simple, bring the folks up to the house where all the paintings are, and let's just do this in a very 'unpitchlike' way.'... It was a fun thing to do; it was very organic - me just telling the tale... "I'll be as involved [in Disney's projects] as they want me to be. My feeling has always been that my first job is to write and paint these books and to create as many cool characters and fun concepts and strange geographies [as I can], so that when other talents in other areas come and look at these worlds, they've got lots to play with. If I'm invited to help in the developmental processes, I'm absolutely there to do that - but I don't want to be proprietary about this. I'm the first to say Abarat will have different lives in different forms, whether it be television or movies or whatever." Clive Barker, Author By Gina McIntyre, The Hollywood Reporter, 4 October 2002 "So, great response [to Abarat Volume 2]. Great response from Disney too, which is fun because then they are now going to go and pursue the movie. I think they seem very committed to taking what I've written seriously and really taking a crack at reflecting it in this movie. So I'm going to meet with them in about a month's time and we'll talk about that." Confessions By Craig Fohr, Lost Souls, 1 August 2003 (note - full text online at Lost Souls - see links page) "That man [John Harrison] is writing Abarat, the screenplay, right now, for Disney. And one of the things that made me want to do the deal with Disney was they said, ‘We really are excited about it and, by the way, we have an island we could give you…’ and I said, ‘You’re on!’ So we are going to create the theme park at some point – Babilonium – party on, man!... "My hope, honestly, would be that it’ll be a mingling of the best [of live action and CGI] – I think we’re finding CGI can do more and more, I just don’t want it to be dominated by CGI" Barnes and Noble Stage Presentation By Brein Lopez, LA Festival of Books, 25 April 2004 "John Harrison - the last I heard, I should have the script in my hand the next week or so - so we'll see. I like John immensely and I have great faith in his loyalty to my vision, because he did the Dune project and he's approached this scale of thinking before and I think did immensely well with Frank Herbert's world and I have great hopes that he'll do the same with Abarat... He was a Disney choice, but he was kind of offered up to me a little bit - like, 'What do you think about John Harrison?' and because of the Dune experience, or Children of Dune, I was like, 'Yeah! Damn right - that's a great idea!' "He spent several parts of days with me, going around the paintings, talking through not only what was on the walls but also what I thought was going to happen to these characters as time went by - to cast my imagination forward from the two books that we do, into whatever the third and the fourth might bring. And I can only do that in a very limited way because of the way I'm working - I haven't painted those books yet! So I don't know that much, but there are some things I know and I was able to offer him some insights. And I was certainly able to give him the feel for what excited me about this whole project in the first place - what had brought me to islands and time and a time out of time and the Fantomaya and all the various elements that plugged into my experiences as a child going to Tiree and Guernsey - two islands which featured hugely in my childhood imaginings.The whole idea of being able to jump through time and then go to a place where time doesn't even exist is something that's very acute right now, being in a state of jet lag! That's the way you feel! You're not plugged into the way the hours work and I made a note to myself two years ago, saying, 'Candy should feel something like jet lag,' and I think that when she gets to move through the islands at a really fast rate (as she'll be required to do in the third and fourth books) that's got to affect her. I mean, jumping from hour to hour, you're getting very strong feelings of what each hour will bring, but they're not in the right order! And it's that weird thing of when you have, for some reason, disturbed sleep, or when you sleep in the middle of the day - you know, when you're really tired and you sleep for a couple of hours in the middle of the day and you lose two hours, you know? This strange sense of being dislocated - I shared a lot of that stuff with John and I think he was excited to have whatever I could give him. What Disney said to him, I do not know, I was not party to. Those conversations were between John and Disney and John didn't choose to share them with me, and that's right and proper. He's a man who's coming to this with three things in his head: who I am, who his employers are - Disney, and who he is as a writer with his own imaginings and his own vision and his own version of what this is (probably I put those in reverse order - probably I should put him first!). He's a very smart, sensitive man and I'm cautiously optimistic that we're going to have something exciting out of this." In Anticipation Of The Deluge: A Moment At The River's Edge By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 1 and 12 July 2004 (note - full text here) "The screenwriter is a man called John Harrison, who I respect enormously and who has been very respectful of my desires where the book is concerned and he tells me the script is loyal to the books and I'm delighted that's so. "I don't want to get too close to the creative process. I still have two more Abarat books to write, though not two more to paint because I'm half way through the paintings for book three. If I start to get involved in the film I'll be drawn back into the material from books one and two when in fact, as a writer, I should be looking forward. My job is to finish the story I have begun in very a spectacular fashion." In A Terrifying World Of His Own By Laura Davis, icliverpool.co.uk, September 2004 (note - full text online at www.icliverpool.co.uk) "Abarat is being adapted by John Harrison for Disney, although we haven’t decided on a director yet. What I did right from the beginning was say to Disney, ‘Look, I’m creating these books, and there’s a lot of my life and energy in it. Come to me if I can be useful, but otherwise I’ll just be writing the books and painting.’ So they haven’t come to me, which I don’t mind, because I like and trust John a great deal. There’s a high likelihood that Abarat will get going at some point, simply because I think fantasy is where people’s heads are right now." Clive Barker’s Dark Plans By Joe Nazzaro, www.fangoria.com, 2 December 2004 "I'm sure that inevitably [Disney] are going to make changes. Turning the first two books into a movie is a huge deal, and so things will be lost and inevitably changed, so I don't want to get my knickers in a twist about stuff I can do nothing about. What I should be doing is concentrating on the stuff that I can do something about, which is the next book and the next painting!" Entering Abarat By Joe Nazzaro, Starburst, No 318, January 2005 "I've been around movies for a long time, and if I've learned anything, it's that a movie isn't made until it's made, so there are no certainties. "I think if we pull this off with live-action, it will be like nothing that anyone has ever done before, and that's a hugely exciting prospect. The idea of putting Christopher Carrion on the screen - with his nightmares sinuously moving around his neck - or having a conversation between John Mischief and his brothers... It's a very complicated piece of work, but on the other hand, if it comes off, man, it could be amazing! "The first movie will contain material primarily from Books One and Two, which makes sense, because there's a big arc in them, which is taking a newly empowered Candy back to the town where she was a victim of her father's cruelty. So she goes back to Chickentown and liberates the chickens, and then returns to Abarat, having freed herself of the shackles of Chickentown and knowing who she really is. Candy is ready to take her place, although she has no idea what place it will be, or what the cost will be, in the life and history of Abarat. So I believe the first two books will work very well as a single movie. Book Three, Absolute Midnight, will be the second movie, and Book Four, which is the mega-book, will be the third film in the trilogy." Days Of Magic By Joe Nazzaro, Fantasy Worlds, No 5, February 2005 "Abarat, the script (what hopefully is the final script) will be turned in to Disney, though not to us, in a week's time... "I have not seen a single word... I sort of am [deliberately avoiding it], actually. I feel as though, 'Let Disney do what they need to do with it and then show it to me,' I think it's hard for people like John Harrison, who is a very, very smart and very respectful man, respectful of the books and of me and I am equally respectful of him. I don't want to be another voice wittering in his ear. I am perfectly sure that there are a dozen script advisers and note-takers and note-takers to the note-takers at Disney who are already doing that. I prefer to wait until the script has found some kind of equilibrium and hopefully John is at a place where he wants to show it to me and when he wants to show it to me, I will happily read it and we'll see, we'll see." The Hellbound Art : Memory, Fantasy And Filigree By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 10 February 2005 (note - full text here) "John Harrison, who wrote the screenplay of 'Abarat' has just turned his screenplay over to Disney. I’m gonna be meeting with Disney in about three of four weeks time to show them the new paintings. I have a hundred of new Abarat paintings they last here in the house. So I want to show the staff of Disney the pictures and talk about how my ideas of the third and fourth book have developed by making these paintings. So we are moving slowly – it’s a slow process with all these large movies because there’s a lot of money involved. And obviously we have to get the screenplays completely right. But what has been nice for Disney is that they have been able to see 'Abarat' go back on to the bestseller list here in America twice - three times the last month." Clive Barker On The Phone By [Thomas Hemmerich], That's Clive!, 29 March 2005 (note - full text online at www.clivebarker.de) "Abarat is at present with Disney – I don’t know whether it will stay with Disney, honestly. Disney’s in flux a little bit, you may have heard they have changes of mouse and so it’s hard to predict. All I know is I’m writing the third book, painting the set of paintings for the third book – there are thirty-two languages now, including Chinese which is great and I feel like a market has opened up in people’s heads (I don’t even want to say market – a hole, a Jump hole – has opened in people’s heads.) People want fantasy more than ever before and I don’t think they necessarily want the old kind of fantasy, either." Jump Tribe Panel Panel appearance, San Diego Comic Con, 14 July 2005 "I don't know... whether we will end up making Abarat with Disney; there's a certain disconnect between Disney and myself. And I can't tell you anything more than that, though it would be terribly fun to do so!" Appearance: Reading, Q&A (i) Tattered Cover Bookshop, Denver, 20 October 2005, (ii) podcast available online at www.authorsontourlive.com as "Clive Barker Podcasts from Visions of Heaven and Hell") "Abarat will be a movie but I am fighting very hard for them not to try making it too soon. We are no longer making Abarat with Disney, that is now official, the work is back in my hands and my ownership, I owe them nothing. I suppose you could say there were creative differences, I don't know. Certainly the way they wanted to do it was not the way I wanted to do it. I realised a short while after getting into the deal with Disney and I'm glad it's come to this conclusion where we can make this movie. Though I have to tell you, there was a man called John Harrison, who did Children of Dune for Sci-Fi channel and a bunch of other movies, and who has just done a really smart version of the bookend tale from The Books of Blood; it's really very, very good. John has done a very fine draft of Abarat which covers Books 1 and 2. "In about six months I'll be writing the third book and I'll be writing the third and fourth books back-to-back; we'll really have this narrative on a roll and these paintings are getting made. As you know there's a lot of paintings now, certainly enough now to start my imagination going - and actually the painting part of it is the hardest part - so we have about 500 paintings that are part of that mythology which could form part of the narrative element for Books 3, 4 and 5. "My thing to the filmmakers is, 'Wait until I've written Book 5 and I've delivered everything and then make your movie.' The reason I say that is because Candy doesn't age significantly - she ages maybe three years across the five books and if you're going to do this properly then the actress can't age overmuch either and you've got to have all the books written and all the screenplays written before you start." Sowing The Seeds Of The Story Tree By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 28 August and 4 September 2006 (note - full text here) "I pulled it away from Disney because to be very honest I did that deal because I was working with two men who I liked immensely and they swore to me they were not going anywhere and of course two months later they were gone. I watched as the Disney organisation plodded its way through bouncing this thing back and forth not knowing what to do with it. Meanwhile I turned in a second book, which only confused them even more. "There just came a point where last September their time was up with the option and it was time for them to come up with a number on the table to keep the material for a decent amount of time. Their lawyer came to us and said ‘We’re Disney, Clive’s very lucky to be with us and here is what we propose: rather than paying you x amount and keeping the material for another two years we keep it for four years and pay you nothing’. And I said ‘Go fuck yourself.’ "They made it so easy for me and it was lovely because I wanted so much to work with these two guys who I had done the deal with and none whatsoever to work with Disney. That was when it was going off the rails and when Eisner started to back into the archives of what I consider the treasure trove of the great American art that is the original Sleeping Beauty and the original Fantasia. This is great art as far as I’m concerned and I will defend it against whoever else comes along! And it appalled me to see them doing these straight to DVD sequels. They were just violating their own library and to me that was just desperate, just pathetic and I just said ‘bye bye’. And now I will wait until I’ve finished all the books or near enough finished all the books and we’ll see. As far as I’m concerned there is nowhere written that a book is not finished unless it’s turned into a film." Jericho / Hellraiser: Clive Barker Reveals All! By Mister Disgusting, Bloody Disgusting.com, 7 November 2007 Michael Mendenhall (Disney): "I see them [the quartet] as being a combination of Harry Potter and a contemporary 'Wizard of Oz' but even richer in character and setting. Clive has created a mystical archipelago... "[What drew Disney to the deal was] that the theatrical property could be developed with so many different creative executions: interactive games, TV animation, live-action TV, theme park rides, music, and reproduction of the art from the film. For us, this is a way to develop creative content that will be fresh for years to come. On this project, Clive clearly has a creative direction that's very in line with our studio." Mouse Catches Barker By Bill Higgins, Daily Variety, 17 April 2000 Jane Friedman (HarperCollins President and CEO): "We are thrilled to announce this exciting project with one of our most successful and respected house authors. HarperCollins has published Clive for more than 10 years, starting first in the UK. I am continually amazed by his vision and creativity, which he is once again sharing with a young audience. There is clearly quite a buzz about this project, we are certain that there will be a tremendous response from readers of all ages." HarperCollins To Publish Children's Fantasy Series by Clive Barker By [ ], www.writenews.com, 26 April 2000 Jane Johnson (HarperCollins): "I've been watching the paintings for Abarat evolve over the last four years, and they are just amazing: vivid, kaleidoscopic, breath-taking, funny, bizarre, inspiring. 'Abarat' - in all its various forms - as book, movie, interactive experience - will be both magical and visually stunning. We all need some magic in our lives; and the combination of Barker and HarperCollins and Disney is going to be just perfect for delivering that magic." First Major Hollywood Deal Inspired By Oil Paintings HarperCollins press release, April 2000 Joanna Cotler (Joanna Cotler / HarperCollins): "I have always felt that Clive has a unique vision. The Abarat Quartet will be one of his greatest achievements. It is brilliant, vivid and inspired: pure magic." HarperCollins To Publish Children's Fantasy Series by Clive Barker By [ ], www.writenews.com, 26 April 2000 Michael Mendenhall (Disney): "The reason [Abarat is some time off] is that we may want to push our film-making technology. If it were to be a combination of live-action and CGI, it's a minimum of three or four years to come out with a really fantastic property. "Not all of the people he's painted will be a part of the movie, or a part of any other ancillary product that's created off of this. We will not do anything to damage the Disney brand, ever. "We were so thrilled to get this project, Spielberg and Katzenberg and Fox and everybody were trying to get it. Everyone was pulling out all the stops. But we didn't razzle-dazzle. We basically went back and presented what our assets were, what our company would do and how we would do it." The Relaunch of Clive Barker By Jeff Zaleski, Publishers Weekly, 24 September 2001 Thomas Schumacher (President, Disney animation): "I'm crazy for the possibilities. Did you see the guy whose seven brothers live on the antlers on his head? This thing's ripe." Stroke Of Genius? By Jeff Jensen, Entertainment Weekly, 3 October 2002 Thomas Schumacher (President, Disney animation): "I have a vision for what can be on the screen in the future that can't be on the screen today, things we have built at Disney that people don't know about yet and will be startling. It will be fun to do these characters, like the guy with the heads on his antlers, with puppetry and animatronics and computer animation and styles of paintings." Where The Really Wild Things Are By Dwight Garner, New York Times Magazine, 13 October 2002 John Harrison: "Both Dune and Abarat exist in the realm of the fantastical. Both have archetypal characters and storylines that I respond to deeply, and both Frank Herbert and Clive Barker are undisputed masters at creating fully realized, complete and integrated worlds. My job on Dune was not to change the world, but to find a way to realize it visually, and to honor the source material as I adapted it to another medium. I learned so much from that, and I hope my success with Dune has enabled me to do much the same with Abarat... "Abarat will only be partially live-action. The characters are too fantastical to realize without some accommodation to CGI. My expectation is that by the time this goes into production, there will be technological advances allowing us to bring characters like John Mischief and Christopher Carrion to life in all their Barker-esque glory, not dissimilar to the way Peter Jackson created Gollum." Adapting Abarat By Joe Nazzaro, Fantasy Worlds, No 5, February 2005 John Harrison: "I co-wrote a movie for Disney called Dinosaur several years ago, and they had bought Clive’s four Abarat books and called me to ask if I’d be interested in adapting them. I had known Clive from some previous encounters - near-misses, things we didn’t get to do together - and I was thrilled, because I’ve been to his house and I’ve seen his fantastic Abarat paintings. It’s phenomenal, because he actually painted the story before he wrote it - his house is filled with canvases, some the size of a whole wall. So I said of course, I’d love to do that. "We’re taking the first two books and adapting them into one movie. The screenplay will go in in the next couple of weeks, and we’ll see what happens. I don’t know what the publication schedule is for Clive’s next two books in the series, but I hope Disney will go forward quickly with the film. It’s got incredible, fantastical characters and a really complex, dark story. He has some wonderfully frightening characters in Abarat - these chimeras of all different shapes and sizes - and Christopher Carrion is a truly scary bad guy. "We’re obviously trying to design the movie for a broad audience, but I’m hoping that the darker aspects won’t get completely removed. I have great faith in the whole grim-fairy-tale attitude about what these stories can be, and I believe that children can handle darker stories than we give them credit for. I hope that the success of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, which didn’t pull any punches in terms of its horrific elements, and the last Harry Potter movie will encourage the studio not to sanitize Clive’s material." Screenwriter Talks Clive Barker’s Abarat Movie By Michael Gingold, Fangoria.com, 24 January 2005 (note - full text online at www.fangoria.com) John Harrison: "I adapted his Abarat books for Disney, which are currently stuck in contract negotiations, so I don’t know what’s going to happen with that... He was very happy with the adaptation of Abarat, and I was happy that he was happy... "It’s going to be ba hugely expensive movie and I don’t know if Disney is ready to plop down the money at the moment. We took the first Abarat books – there are four of them, or there will be four of them – and I took the first two and created the screenplay. It’s wonderful. It’s magical, it’s fun, it’s got great characters. All the paintings of the great characters Clive imagined come to life in this." John Harrison (Effects) By Devin Faraci, Cinematic Happenings Under Development, 6 November 2005 (note: full text online at www.chud.com) Vipex ...aka Lord of Illusions II. Barker clearly has a long-standing relationship with his favourite detective - who can appear (and has) when required, in any number of storylines. Harry can provide that sense of first person involvement crucial to writer and reader alike and is already a well-known and trusted character - so if Vipex doesn't come off then expect to see Harry cropping up somewhere else instead. Interestingly, the bio of Barker in the UK Gods and Monsters DVD booklet (released in June 2000) described the project as "in the works" - the first we'd heard about it for almost two years. Whilst news in July 2001 of a Harry D'Amour TV series for MGM (see TV Still To Come...) signalled a shift to the small screen, it now looks like the movie option is back in favour... "Harry is the 'good guy' in the story. At least, he's perceived that way. So I'm hoping that, if we do manage a sequel to this picture, I'd get to bring Harry D'Amour back. He's the interesting character to me, he's the man with the haunted past. He's just had a bit of bad luck when it comes to meeting up with the occult. If we do make another movie with Harry, it may give us the chance to keep the material fresh. The ideal model for this is the television series Night Stalker, which I always loved. I'd like to think that we could do something similar with Harry. I think Bakula was tremendous playing the part of Harry. He's a very reassuring, accessible person which, curiously, frees me up to be a lot nastier. Because the movie has such an accessible figure at its heart, it frees me up to be far colder and nastier." A Graveside Chat With Clive Barker By Jim Moore, Deathrealm, Fall 1996 (note: interview took place in 1995) "I definitely want to once again have the mingling of reality and wild, dark fantasy that marked the first one - it should be a major part of the second. I want to see if we could do that again. Harry comes back [not Nix] and I think it will be set in New York, but I'm just playing with that now. I'd like to have a completely fresh title and emphasise that it's the same character. That would be my ideal and we'd work from there." The Conjuring of Lord of Illusions part 5 - The Last Interview By Anthony C. Ferrante, Fangoria, No 146, September 1995 {Note: interview took place in early Spring 1995} "I've been writing about Harry as a character now for ten years and he's encountered a lot of strange things in novels and short stories and so part of this [sequel to Lord Of Illusions] is going and taking him on a fresh adventure. One of the fun things about him as a character, I think, is being funny, accessible, sexy, all those things and, I don't know if I've said this before but horror movies and dark supernatural movies are driven by their villains. When you think about a horror movie you think about the villain: you think about Pinhead; you think about the Candyman; you think about Freddy Kreuger; you think about Isuzu possessing poor little Linda Blair. You don't think about good guys. What I've had to do in this movie is make it so that you care about the good guy. So, forget about Nix - he's gone, all those guys are gone, never to be seen again. I don't want to have that thing of, 'Oh-oh, the monster's back...' We've pulled out the stake and all of that stuff - it's time to take the story somewhere fresh and hopefully the series can continue in some way, maybe develop the idea of an emotional arc for Harry - which has certainly occurred in the books - so that as we live with Harry, as it were, from story to story we understand him better. "One of the things that happens to him in Lord Of Illusions is he walks off into a rather grim-looking future with Dorothea. What's happened to Dorothea might indeed be an element in the next picture; not that Dorothea will be, but you know, just to finish off that arc of the story." Leapcon 1996 Transcript of an appearance at Leapcon, the Quantum Leap convention, 18 February 1996 "There will be a sequel. We're shooting it for a video release, much like the Darkman sequels were made. I'm hoping that Bakula will return. He's making his mind up at the moment. If he decides not to do it, we'll recast the role. After all, we will soon have had four Batmen with George Clooney taking the lead, so changing the actor really shouldn't affect the series and I've always wanted to take Harry to television. He is a natural for a TV series, with shades of Kolchak, the night stalker." Lord Of Illusion By [ ], Home Cinema Choice, September 1996 Scott Bakula : "I would love to [play Harry again]. There is already talk of a sequel. We are all wonderfully optimistic. We can go a lot of places with the character." The Big Leap By Edward Gross, Cinescape, Vol 1, No 11, August 1995 "United Artists is talking about it, starring Scott Bakula. It is supposed to start shooting next year. It will have a television and video life. I don't know if Scott has committed yet, but I think he will. He's not had great luck as of late, but he's a very talented actor and I like working with him. He had a great time working on the movie. Craig [Scheffer - Nightbreed] had some problems. Scott, on the other hand, is solid. He's an old fashioned star, in the sense that he learns his lines and he comes on and does what he needs to do. I have nothing but respect for the man. So, we will see what happens with the sequel. If it works, the idea is to then do a Harry D'Amour television series." Confessions By [Stephen Dressler and Cheryl Bentzen], Lost Souls, Issue 6, January 1997 "[Vipex is] still in the works. It hasn't gone away, it has just taken something of a back seat to a whole bunch of other things that have been going on this year. I provided a story. The script - which is very good - was written by David Campbell Wilson, who wrote this new movie 'Supernova' which Walter Hill is directing. It's a really first-rate script, but we just haven't focused a lot on the project. "The material still fascinates me because Harry fascinates me. Lord of Illusions has had a wonderful afterlife on video, laser and now DVD. Harry was always intended to be a character we could revisit. And, of course, he has a large place in the third book of The Art." Lord of New Illusions By W.C.Stroby, Fangoria, No 175, August 1998 "I would very much like to make another film with Harry D’Amour and those discussions have already taken place. We have a script, with the title Vipex, which in my opinion is rather good." Confession By Daniel Conrad and Benoît Domis, Mauvais Genres, France Culture, 12 January 1999 (Note - translated from the French.) "I think we will see more movies about Harry D'Amour, and it will be as you anticipated, on DVD/VHS more likely than on the big screen. Unfortunately, the movie Lord of Illusions did only modestly well theatrically, and the powers that be did not think it deserved a theatrical sequel." Horror In Books And Movies: Clive Barker By [ ], USA Today Online Chat, The Nation Talks : Live, 31 October 2000 (Note - full text at usatoday.com) "Well the idea is that we will take the D'Amour character and we will do more with him for television. And then eventually we decided this would be better as a movie. So I think we are trying to figure it as a movie right now. That is why I am using the word sequel... but that is something we are certainly contemplating right now.." Confessions By Craig Fohr, Lost Souls, 1 August 2003 (note - full text online at Lost Souls - see links page) I Am Not Myself ...A small syndicated news column is reporting that Seraphim have optioned a book by Josh Kilmer-Purcell - I Am Not Myself - the true story of of a New York drag queen. An advertising executive by day, his alter ego, 'Aquadisiac', heads downtown by night. Apparently recommended by Barker, HarperCollins plan to publish I Am Not Myself in 2006... [HarperCollins editor: 'I'm really not the drag-queen type, Clive.'] "Read this book, you'll be the type!" Trailer Parks And Other Bare Facts By Liz Smith, Newsday, 30 March 2005 Click here for More Films Still To Come...? ...And Still To Come Index | Home page This page has been created for information and entertainment purposes only. All quotes remain the copyright of the original owners.