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...A story about art and artists...
"I've just finished one [screenplay] called 'American Primitive'. We'll
talk about it later. I would like to direct it some time in the not
so distant future. I don't have a time frame for when I would do it,
but I would very much like to do it some time soon."
Confessions
By [Stephen Dressler and Cheryl Bentzen],
Lost Souls, Issue 4, [July] 1996
"My next movie project will be an original script called 'American Primitive', about American artists who create from their
visions of angels and spirits."
Hoods Cast, Crew Sweating Out Killer Deadline
By Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith,
Los Angeles Daily News, 10 July 1996
"I have only written two screenplays that were originated as screenplays and neither of them were made.
I'm not surprised now, looking back on them, they are very strange but one of them I feel very passionate about and will certainly
turn into a novel at some point... - [that being] American Primitive and it's about art - I mean, is there any less likely subject for
anyone to make a movie about? Talk about making dumb decisions..."
Sowing The Seeds Of The Story Tree
By Phil and Sarah Stokes,
28 August and 4 September 2006 (note - full text here)
...Barker had big plans for this epic set in the American
1860's, following the incursion of the railroad as it tracks west
through Illinois and Wyoming. With hopes for this to
be just the first of a pre-planned franchise, the screenplay was
delivered to New Line but met with a cool reception, as evidenced
by the fact that, having paid $400,000 to get it, it took them three
months to read the screenplay and get back with comments...
"I am going to do a screenplay for New Line Cinema which will be an
original screenplay. I am keeping this under wraps right now, but I
will direct. It will be a horror movie, no question."
Confessions
By Stephen Dressler, Lost Souls, Issue 12, January 1999
"Most classic monsters and horror stories tend to be European in origin. I'm not
interested in returning to the tired old Gothic type. I want to create a new myth - an
American myth... Where I've had most success is creating my own mythology - characters
such as Pinhead and Candyman. I don't have a problem with something that lasts for more
than one movie. A second picture can often be stronger than the first."
Scream Team Lined Up
By Chris Petrikin and Benedict Carver,
Daily Variety, 9 February 1999
"This one is a secret, but it's a project I'm in love with. I think it
will be completely fresh and new in the dark fantasy realm."
The Dominion
Transcript of an on-line session at The Dominion, website of the Sci-Fi
Channel, 8 March 1999
"I think it's time to get behind the camera again. With the success of
Gods and Monsters and just enjoying seeing people taking pleasure in
that at the Oscars is tremendous. We were enthused from the reaction
and I came up with a story that I love. I'm going to do that for New
Line and hopefully we will get before the camera next year."
Confessions
By [Stephen Dressler and Cheryl Bentzen], Lost Souls, Vol 2 No 1, April 1999
"[It's] a sort of secret project, but what I can say is that it's a period picture. It's
set in 1866. I wanted to make a horror movie which was an American horror movie. I wanted
to make a picture which used a created American mythology rather than going back to the
old country, going back to vampires or the Frankenstein monster or werewolves or whatever.
I wanted to create something fresh and American. The working title for the film is The
American Horror Movie and that's what it is. It'll be fun because it's a period movie,
too, and when I write period stuff I thoroughly enjoy it. I love getting involved in the
research for period stuff. I think that will be great fun to do."
Dream Catcher
By Gina McIntyre, Wicked, Vol 2 No 1, February 2000
"I may need to pay very close attention to [Thief Of Always CGI] before
I can go and make American Horror Movie, but there's no question in my
head that that's the next film that I should go and direct. I'm only
using the word 'Western' very loosely, because it's set in part in
Chicago, which was a very sophisticated city in 1866. I've always said
this was a little bit of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, a little bit
of The Age Of Innocence and a lot of the old Clive Barker horrormeister.
But it's a very interesting hybrid of genres."
The Essential Obsessions
By Cody Goodfellow,
Lost Souls Newsletter, May 2000
"[It's] in turnaround. New Line decided it was too dark, too bloody,
too visceral and too expensive. It's a period piece about the origins
of America. I used the creation of the transcontinental railroad as a
backcloth to a very ambitious story about monstrous presences in America."
The Dark Backward
By Philip Nutman,
Fangoria, No 200, March 2001
...Pete Atkins may hate to read about films that got away, but we just
love to hear about them! Amok was a 'supernatural thriller' that was to have been part of
the six-picture deal with Propaganda. It was an Atkins
screenplay based on an original Barker treatment with Barker set to executive-produce. It reached
first draft submission stage at least but, despite a name change to Madison's Arrow,
the project still foundered...
"[It's] a dark fantasy thriller with the working title Amok. It is
only a working title!"
The Road To Hell
By Dave Hughes,
State, Issue 3 Vol 1, December 1992 - January 1993
Pete Atkins :
"There's a couple of other projects including one of hopefully
Propaganda that Clive will executive produce and I'll write, which is
sort of in the discussion stages at the moment, so I don't want to
talk too much about that. So I don't look like a fool if things don't
happen."
Pete Atkins Interview
By Diane Keating,
Coenobium, Issue No 6, [1992]
Pete Atkins :
"We've talked about a script which may go at Propaganda Films where
Clive has an ongoing development deal. They're making Candyman based
on the story The Forbidden from the Books of Blood, directed by Bernard
Rose. The new project's called Amok and the plan is for me to write
with Clive as executive producer. I hate reading about movies that
never get made but that film's apparently been given a green light for
development."
The Long Road To Hell
By Philip Nutman,
Gorezone, No 22, April 1992
Hellraiser V (original version)
...After the long period of development hell on Hellraiser III - see
our exclusive essay by Peter Atkins
on the saga of the Hellraiser III's
we never saw - and the problems surrounding Hellraiser IV, it was
perhaps no surprise to hear that initial plans to films V and VI
back-to-back failed to go smoothly.
The plotline of the fifth instalment in the franchise, Inferno, was
originally to have formed the basis of Hellraiser VI but all the
plotlines from Michael Lent's original screenplay for
the original number 5 got discarded and they just shot one film.
Aside from having read a few of Michael Lent's excellent advice columns
in Creative Screenwriting and knowing that Doug Aarniokoski was down
to direct it, we don't know too much about this one...
Michael Lent :
"We're just weeks away from production on Hellraiser and I'm still
ripping up the Second Act, so I gotta be brief here...
"Remember, it takes awhile - I averaged one tiny deal a year
($1500-6500) for each of my first 4 years out here before Hellraiser.
But I was doing exactly what I love, so the time went by quick. Like
the song says, 'The race is long and in the end, it is only with
yourself.' Relax, hone your craft, don't put too much pressure on the
results side right away, and I guarantee you'll get where you want to
be. Good Luck."
Talk Back
By Michael Lent,
Creative Screenwriting, 7 April 1999 (Note: online at www.creativescreenwriting.com)
Michael Lent :
"We hope to stick a fork in the Hellraiser V script in the next 2 weeks
and begin shooting end of May or early June. The director is Robert
Rodriguez' long time AD from such films as Dusk 'Til Dawn and The Faculty,
so I'm optimistic of our chances of raising the bar to the level of
the first Hellraiser. The opening sequence is a killer."
Talk Back
By Michael Lent,
Creative Screenwriting, 19 April 1999 (Note: online at www.creativescreenwriting.com)
...Unlike most of the Books of Blood which went on to become graphic
novels, this one is a bona fide graphic novel, written especially for
the medium before arousing big screen ambitions. At the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, Miramax announced that Primal would be the
first picture for their new Dimension division with a budget of $7million. Barker was set to executive produce and Miramax were in the
process of negotiating to have him direct as well, before the project failed...
"I would love to make another big monster movie, and I think we have it
with Primal. Dan Chichester and Erik Saltzgaber have already started
the screenplay. It's a killer story, a real killer story. I'm excited
by that. And it's a monster movie. Absolutely a monster movie."
Rawhead Rex - The Creator
By [Michael Brown], Dread, No 6, 1992
"I have really enjoyed my association with Miramax and look
forward to continuing it with Primal as well as bringing the new film
label a lot of new ideas."
Barker's 'Primal' Is Miramax's First Dimension
By Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn,
Hollywood Reporter, 12 May 1992
"What it seemed to me the three of us [Barker, Saltzgaber and
Chichester] had was a shared idea of both comic-book horror and
cinematic horror which meant that, in principle, we should be able to
take this project from the pages of a comic book onto the screen -
which is, indeed, what we're doing now. We've got a deal with Miramax,
and Primal will be on the Miramax slate as a movie.
"In fact, the satisfactions that you get from a comic book are in some
ways very different from the satisfactions you get from a movie. I
resent the implication made - very often, actually, by the misinformed
- that comic books are a poor relation of cinema. That's not the case
at all. We've done some stuff in Primal that is tremendous. We've
also pushed the envelope of what might be considered good, or bad,
taste. We can promise our readers a beast that has a range of powers
and skills and possibilities that they won't have seen before."
Barker's Primal Fears
By John Wooley,
Fangoria, No 113, June 1992
Bob Weinstein :
"We look at 'Primal' as the beginning of a franchise opportunity. We're looking at comics, games and toys as well as
sequels...
"This will be the first of a series of projects like Primal. The whole idea of Dimension is to go after these kinds of upscale,
mass-appeal genre films. We acquired Hellraiser 3 and Children of the
Corn 2, which Dimension will release this summer in the U.S."
Barker's 'Primal' Is Miramax's First Dimension
By Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn,
Hollywood Reporter, 12 May 1992
...More dabblings in the world of comics, their big screen pretensions
probably folded around the same time as the comics themselves...
Malcolm Smith :
"It's looking like these creations are going to have lives outside the
comics as well. Ectokid is on its way to becoming an animated TV show.
And there's already some talk about feature films being made of Hokum
& Hex and Hyperkind."
From Doodles To Decamundi
By Malcolm Smith,
Hokum & Hex, Vol 1 No 6, February 1994
The Thief Of Always - animated
...Thief of Always has always stood alone amongst Barker's written
work, carving out its own growth in popularity amongst a different
audience and becoming a set text in American schools. So, it did not
strike as odd that it should make its own way to Hollywood as an
image-led, animated movie...
"Here at Paramount, with Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, I'm
doing a $22m animated feature based on The Thief of Always. If you
watch the stuff on television, which is where children's imaginations
are increasingly being stimulated, there does not seem to be much
imaginative life in it. My feeling was, maybe I could bring my brand
of imagination to fiction for children. We hope to make something that
will work like a classic Disney cartoon, only for the 90's. The book
is very much about children being able to make decisions between Good
and Bad. As long as the fables take children to a place where the
reader says 'Evil was rejected', then I think the road to that
conclusion can be as rocky and scary as you like. We're in pre-production
now, so we're hoping it will be out Halloween of 1995."
Hellraiser
By Jay Stevenson,
Imagi-Movies, Vol 1, No 2, Winter 1993/94
"Particularly in the area of animation your control as a
producer is miniscule…It's important to have the
darkness as long as there's a light at the end of the
tunnel. And I think what's being lost in the debate at
the moment is that you can't scrub the picture
completely clean. You can't make it all saccharin,
'cause then you start to lie to kids. I'm cautiously
optimistic that it's going to be a cool movie."
The Thief of Always
By Michael Beeler,
Cinefantastique, Vol 26 No 3, April 1995
"It's going to be pretty dark. It's also a musical, with Jerry
Goldsmith doing the score."
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}
"This is a new one for me so I'm learning as I go,
I'm such a fan of animated features and just
totally enjoying watching these people turn my work into
something wonderful. I think the release is going to be
Halloween 1996."
Lord Of Illusions
By Michael Beeler,
Cinefantastique, Vol 26 No 5, August 1995
"I've always thought of myself as an 'animated features man', and a
'shorts' man as well. I have a good time with that, I love it, I love
working on the storyboard. It's a real thrill and you've much more
control.
We've worked together on this in the sense that I've been happy with
what they've done, but part of it, a lot of it, frankly, is about how
easily the form can be manipulated in space. As the director was
telling me when I came up and asked, 'Why don't you have this extra
line there?' 'Because every time you put that line there I have to draw
it 24 times for every second. Do you really want that line there?' I
mean Disney hired a guy to draw Bambi's eyelashes and that took two
years! And that was all that guy ever did!"
World Weaver
By John M Farrell,
Hot Press, No 13951, 1995,
"My company, Seraphim, has now officially moved to 20th Century Fox. So
we are now in the situation where we will be developing a whole bunch
of T.V. material/movies of the week and motion pictures with Fox. So
one of the things that we may do is take the project "Thief of Always"
over to Fox. I don't honestly know right now if Nelvana will be
involved or not. The problem right now is that it is a city full of people
playing musical chairs. There just seems to be no ending to it
whatsoever and many of the people with whom we originally did the deal
at Paramount are no longer there...management structure has changed
completely, so the people who were initially interested in Thief of
Always and had put millions of dollars into it's development are no
longer there. Universal is interested in the project and a couple other
people; Miramax is interested in the project, but because I've been
out on a loop for a while I haven't really been studying it closely. My
life has been entirely Sacrament for the last 3 months, so now that I'm
back one of the things we'll focus on is bringing it over to Fox... I
think everything [including drawings] would change which I wouldn't
necessarily mind. The truth of the matter is that's the way movies go
as you go. You think about the 15 years it took for 'Interview with the
Vampire' to hit the screen, the 10 years it took to get 'The Stand'
on to T.V....You get these people involved and those people involved.
The practicality of making movies is that you're constantly dealing
with a new set of problems and people, and I'm always amazed that
anything can get made at all."
Confessions
By [Stephen Dressler and Cheryl Bentzen],
Lost Souls, Issue 5, October 1996
"After the phenomenal success of The Lion King, no-one seemed
comfortable about going up against Disney [with an animated film]. We
were pitching Thief around and, although people seemed to be willing
to fund modestly scaled animated pictures, they didn't want to make a
really elaborate one. And I was not comfortable with the idea of not
doing this the proper way.
"Bernard [Rose] came to me and said, 'you know, if you're not having luck
with it, I would really love to make this movie.' When the rights were
dropped by the animation company [Nelvana], Bernard took them up.
We'll see how it all plays out. I love that book, it's very close to
my heart."
Lord of New Illusions
By W.C.Stroby,
Fangoria, No 175, August 1998
The Thief Of Always - live action
...Once the Thief of Always animated feature died and some
time since Bernard Rose had The Midnight Meat Train in his sights as
Candyman 2 , the Barker / Rose pairing that delivered so much on
Candyman looked set to thrill the world again in a live action version
of the story. Alas, this adaptation also failed to make it to the screen...
"Recently, in my books at least, I have taken a turn toward fantasy,
rather than horror material. A few years ago, I published a book for
children called 'The Thief of Always', which proved very successful
around the world and is being turned into a $50 million movie by
Universal. Clearly, that's a direction that interests me. I'm also very
keen to explore eroticism in my work. I recently had an exhibition of
erotic paintings here in Los Angeles which was a sellout. So I think
you can look forward to Clive Barker material that goes all the way
from the PG to the NC-17! The director is Bernard Rose, who directed
Candyman for me,and he is presently working on the screenplay. What I
've seen so far is extraordinary. If Universal agrees with me, Bernard
would start shooting toward the end of this year, as a guess. By the
way, for those of you who know the book, most of the action takes place
in a magical house in which all things are possible. It's a kind of
playground, where your fondest wishes come true. Universal has
indicated that if the film is made, they'd like to recreate this house
as an attraction at their theme park. [next film] As a director, I
don't know. As a producer, it will be 'The Thief of Always.'"
AOL Appearance
Transcript of on-line appearance, 18 August 1997
"In the case of Thief of Always; it's my book and I've worked with
Bernard Rose before. My company is producing it along with Manifest
which is Lisa Hensen's company and Universal. I am sort of one of the
God-Fathers of the movie. The decisions about writing, the adaptation,
how much the movie will cost and the way it will be cast, I will have
my finger in all of those decisions. My company along with Lisa's and
Universal are all pulling together in the same direction. As the
creator of the original material, Universal will necessarily listen to
my voice, in the opening parts of the process at least. They may not
later on because sometimes things change. In the opening parts they
have been extremely eager for me to share my thoughts about what I feel
is most cinematic about the book and what I feel is thematically
important. When they come up with casting ideas, they run things by me
and Bernard runs things by me. That's one kind of executive
producership.
"Universal's enthusiasm has been marvelous. They have been tremendously
articulate about what they like about this book. One of the things
that is very satisfying about this is going into a meeting at Universal
and finding out there is such passion amongst the executives there for
this little book. It's certainly going to be, as far as my producing
duties are concerned, the big project of next year. It's definitely one
I'm looking forward to."
Confessions
By [Stephen Dressler and Cheryl Bentzen],
Lost Souls, Issue 9, November 1997
Bernard Rose : "Anna Karenina was a pretty straightforward adaptation of the book. It's not easy to chew up an 800-page
Tolstoy novel. The film was taken out of my hands after I directed it, and it was mangled in post-production. Next I wrote a big-budget
screenplay for Universal, The Thief of Always, a Harry Potter-esque children's fantasy that got lost in development hell there. It was
based on a Clive Barker novel. Then I did ivans xtc."
Interview With Independent-Minded British Screenwriter/Director Bernard Rose
By Alan Waldman,
WGA.org, June 2002 (note - full text online at www.gather.com)
The Thief of Always - CGI Version
...After both the animated and the live action
versions fell by the Hollywood wayside, movements in technology
and the Toy Story phenomenon brought up the possibility of CGI telling the tale more effectively. With Industrial Light and Magic
on board, there were high hopes for the project, before Universal withdrew their support (foregoing the much talked about theme park
tie-ins) leaving the project in limbo in 2001. However, new plans have been made for Thief in 2004
(see Films Still To Come...) - with Kelly
Asbury attached to the project as director, and Clive staying close at hand to produce...
"Thief is not really floating around. It's in good shape. I have a
meeting at Universal tomorrow (December 15) on that very thing. Though the issues we're
looking at right now are exactly how it's going to be done. There is some argument as to
whether it will be entirely CGI - Toy Story style - or a mixture of live action and CGI.
Presumably we will make up our minds tomorrow. But Universal is very committed to it, and
I have high hopes that we will make that movie work. It's a very expensive movie, all
movies are expensive these days. But there are a lot of effects, there's a lot of
spectacle to it. But I have a good working relationship with the guys at Universal. I
like them immensely and they've been very supportive to the project. I have high hopes
that it will go.
"I've been very involved up to now. I mean we've been developing this for a while.
Actually almost since the book came out [1992]. And it was a book, which instantly, was
bought almost instantly for the movies. And I've been a part of the development process
throughout and have been quite close to it and want to remain close to it. Obviously
when it goes to a director you lose a certain amount of power. At that point the battle
is turned over from whoever has been involved in the developmental process to the
director, which is fine and dandy. But it is a project I feel close to and I want to
stay that way."
Interview: Clive Barker
By Spence D,
IGN Movies, 16 December 1999
"A polish of the script is being done by Ed Solomon, who did most
recently Men In Black as the writer. And he is just doing a polish of
the script while ILM [Industrial Light and Magic] finish the design work, and then we will start
the story-boards for the whole thing, and move from there. I think we
are probably four weeks from the starting the proper production
process.
"I like immensely what Ed is doing, he is being very true to the book.
I think that the designs that ILM are coming up with are amazing. The
house is exactly as I dreamed it would be. And you know the amazing
thing about the whole CGI process is that it's going to allow a lot of
creative freedom. It's going to give this a chance to really make this
come to life in front of people. I think this going to be an amazing
movie. It's going to take a long time to make, but finally it's going
to be worth it. The technology is advancing all the time."
Confessions
By [Craig Fohr],
Lost Souls Newsletter, September / December 2000 (note - interview took
place 25 August 2000)
"[Production came] incredibly close, they had a shitload of money on
it. The problem was that they could never find a way to put a star
into the movie, and the movie's expensive, and it's really about a
bunch of kids. It's hard to get a Robin Williams in there, or a Jim
Carrey."
The Relaunch of Clive Barker
By Jeff Zaleski,
Publishers Weekly, 1 October 2001
...No - really... The same End Of Days in which Ahnuld saves the world (again)...
Directed by Barker..? Clearly a case of someone's Millennium madness but what a tantalising prospect lost...
"Well End of Days is a very quick story. It was just that my then-agent called me up and
said, 'You know we have this movie, they need to do it really quickly.' It was one of
those situations where there was something quite tempting about it. I like making movies
and I was sort of looking at the idea of making a movie in a very short time frame, and
there would have been something quite entertaining about doing a Schwarzenegger picture.
But in the end you sort of have to make your choices. You get one life and you have to
choose really between the things you're going to put your time into and the things you're
not. I don't regret that choice, particularly having seen the movie."
Interview: Clive Barker
By Spence D,
IGN Movies, 16 December 1999
...On the same track of big budget film-making, Barker passed on this one too...
"I turned down the job of writing the screenplay for Aliens III. I
think that I should be pursuing my own stuff. What I do best is
imagine. I don't like the idea of picking up on somebody else's
narrative."
Talking Terror With Clive Barker
By Douglas E. Winter,
Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine, Vol 7, No 2, June 1987
"I was busy and secondly it was someone else's aesthetic. The
parameters on originality were fairly strict."
Who's Afraid Of Clive Barker?: The Titan Of Terror And His Studies
In Dread Reckoning
By David Streitfield, The Washington Post, 1987
"I had several meetings with David [Giler] in London and L.A. talking
about [writing and directing Alien 3], but I could never get my head
around the fact that the Aliens didn't seem terribly interesting to me.
They're inarticulate. They're essentially machines, albeit organic ones.
And that is so very far from what I do. I just couldn't find my way
around this warrior tribe of mute, insect-led devourers; murderers. It
did capture my imagination, but for far too short a time."
Alien 3 : A Dire Tribe
By Dave Hughes,
Aliens, Vol 2 No 8, February 1993
Creature From The Black Lagoon
...And this one too...
"Someone came to me with that idea and I loved that movie and I didn't
feel that the original could be improved. I'd like to recommend if
there's anyone out there... to get it up there. It's in 3D... so if
there's anyone out there with a revival theater, for goodness sake,
re-run that film. It's a marvellous movie."
Chats From The Past
Transcript of on-line Hollywood Spotlight appearance, 23 June 1998
...Cinderella? Ever watchful for a way to make a buck, Hollywood
continues to attempt to recycle the good old stories that have survived
the test of time. No doubt this one would have turned out owing more to the
elemental horrors of the Grimm tradition than to the sugar-sweet fairy
tales of today. Ah well...
"The main reason I'm taking a break [from movies] is because of the
people you have to work with. They are by and large not nice, generous,
creative people. I needed to be away from that for awhile just to get
back in touch with what I really like to do, which is to paint and
write. I'll enter that arena again, somewhere down the line. I just
signed a four book contract with Harper-Collins that takes me through
until 2002. So, there's plenty of work for me to do. The last couple of
months I've been offered plenty of horror movies and today I was
offered Cinderella... To write and direct. I told them if my agent
played the ugly sister. He said he looks wonderful in a dress, but
let's not go there."
Confessions
By [Stephen Dressler, Cheryl Bentzen and Mike Bundlie],
Lost Souls, Issue 6, January 1997
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