Films Still To Come...?

New Books of Blood Movies - The Films of Blood ...Despite previous Books of Blood movie projects falling off the rails (see 'Films That Got Away...'), the six books continue to offer opportunities to translate Barker's visions to the silver screen. August 2002's Fangoria Convention saw Seraphim heralding numerous projects which would mine Barker's back catalogue, signalling a concerted effort to breathe new lives into the older source material - The Books Of Blood in particular, with Midnight Meat Train and Down Satan! specifically named. 2004, however, brought a brand new Books of Blood deal to the table for Seraphim and Jorge Saralegui - under the moniker Midnight Picture Show - with initial plans for eight full-length pictures by new up-and-coming writers, and possibly more to follow... Pig Blood Blues has now been given to Seraphim's Anthony DiBlasi for adaptation and direction and New York Resurrection is being adapted from a Barker concept by John Heffernan (who has worked on Damnation Game.) Further down the line, Charles Canzoneri is being lined up to work on Age of Desire, with Lori Lakin writing her own 'Revelation', although Barker is retaining the right to polish all Midnight Picture Show scripts before they see the cameras... With Midnight Meat Train and The Book Of Blood already filmed, DiBlasi's new Dread script is next on the slate, to be followed by Pig Blood Blues and The Madonna. Down, Satan is the latest planned feature to be named... "There are six books of fiction there and I've kept them from being used up partially because I've always dreamed that at some point I would have a chance to make a library of movies based upon this material so that I would have the cinematic equivalent of The Books of Blood called The Films Of Blood and that's what I think we have here. We have investors who are excited by the prospect of letting us make two movies a year, which we will have creative control over, which will be very strong, hardcore horror movies, and even stronger and more hardcore when we get to the DVD versions which I want to make as complete an experience as possible, so that in a few years' time we'll be able to go to our DVD locker and take out fifteen Films of Blood. That's our dream and it's shared by our investors." The Unholy Rebirth Of Clive Barker By Jen Vuckovic, Rue Morgue, Issue 41, September/October 2004 "We hope our advantage will come from my own body of work of really intense horror stories that are original. We will not be reheating old films, freshening up old ideas. ... Even forgetting the sequels we hope to make, I've got enough here for 20 movies of varying budget scales. "Jorge and I want to wind up with a library of pictures that will reflect my sensibilities, which are decidedly R rated. In fact, the moment I make a PG-13 horror movie, you can take me out and shoot me. Our desire is to leave you feeling that we're a little crazy." Pair's New Scare Tactics By Michael Fleming, Variety, 24 May 2005 (note - full text online at www.variety.com) "Six of the Books of Blood stories, starting with another, subtly-titled opus called The Midnight Meat Train - we’re going to do those pictures – so we’re going to have fun, it’s going to be a busy time... The Will and Testament of Jacqueline Ess is one of the pictures that we will develop as part of that deal – that’s a particularly strong picture about female empowerment I think. It’s a fun picture; I like that story." Barnes and Noble Stage Presentation By Brein Lopez, LA Festival of Books, 25 April 2004 "We're going to make Midnight Meat Train as a movie, it's one of the films we've got set up for next year. So, hopefully Midnight Meat Train will come rolling down a track near you soon. That's one of the exciting things. We're also doing Down, Satan! and a few other fun things. The next three or four years will see shit-loads of Barker out there!" Fangoria Weekend Of Horrors Transcript of an appearance on the Saint Sinner panel at the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors, Pasadena, 17 August 2002, reported at www.Fangoria.com as New Clive Barker Film Projects Announced, 22 August 2002. "We've put together this deal to do adaptations of The Books of Blood stories, which is going ahead... These are scripts which have been freshly minted, with Anthony Di Blasi and Joe Daley watching carefully over their development. So, what we have is full-length movies - not the stuff that was knocking around a year ago which were short scripts for half-hour movies. These are full-length, 90-minute, 100-minute movies and, we'll see, but I always go into these things optimistically - it's the only way to do it - and my hope is we can make some cool movies out of this material... "We never showed the graphic novels to the folks, because we feel like we have to hold that in abeyance until we actually get out and start making these movies - we don't want to start influencing the people who are going to take these stories in their own direction." 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) "This is a long process. We're talking about five, six, seven years of making these movies. There are thirty stories in the [Books of Blood] and I think fifteen or sixteen of them are adaptable, and if we had a little more money that number would go up to twenty-three or twenty-four. " Barker's Midnight Meat Train On Track By Dave Alexander, Rue Morgue, No 47, July 2005 "It's possible that you'll see more than one or two pictures a year from us, but it's unlikely that you'll see more than two a year that are as closely watched over as these [Midnight Picture Show projects] are, just because there is a limit to the amount of close watching I can do... "We'll make Pig Blood Blues next year as part of this ongoing process. With New York Resurrection, I wanted to do the scariest movie I could dealing with cops. It has a really cool hook and it's a very raw, on-the-nose movie, as I want all of these films to be." Visions In Paint And Celluloid By Carnell, Fangoria, No.247, October 2005 Joe Daley : "We're going to the heart of his material. We're diving deep into The Books of Blood, which is exciting for us and I think exciting for people who have been around and on the journey with us." Fangoria Weekend Of Horrors Transcript of an appearance on the Saint Sinner panel at the Fangoria Weekend of Horrors, Pasadena, 17 August 2002, reported at www.Fangoria.com as New Clive Barker Film Projects Announced, 22 August 2002 Jorge Saralegui : "We will build toward that goal [of long-term finance], but first we have to prove ourselves in the marketplace." Pair's New Scare Tactics By Michael Fleming, Variety, 24 May 2005 (note - full text online at www.variety.com) Joe Daley : "We have five or six of the shorts adapted into screenplays in some form... [we're planning to work with] a company that would be making two pictures a year for four years. We feel pretty confident it will happen as we envisioned it, knock on wood." Books of Blood Movie Updates By Ryan Rotten, Shock Till You Drop.com, 1 May 2007 (Note: full text online at www.shocktillyoudrop.com) Joe Daley : "We don't know exactly which one will be next but we are currently looking at Dread, Pig Blood Blues and The Madonna. We are going to be doing the next film in Glasgow and we want to do as many of these as possible. Some of them are quite bizarre so what we want to try and do, as we have done with Midnight Meat Train, is make something more accessible and straightforward. But it is a Clive Barker type of straightforward. And if these do well then we can do some of the ones that go to really incredible places..." Fear Factory By [ ], SFX, No 168, April 2008 Down, Satan ...Clive is excited to announce a new adaptation of his 1985 short story, Down, Satan! Concerning the fate of Gregorius, who contrived to build Hell on Earth in order to tempt the Devil (and, thus, God), Clive tells this tale in a mere 1600 words or so, making this adaptation a challenging one. The feature is currently in its very early stages but Chris Monfette's first draft has been extremely well received at Seraphim and Clive is highly flattering about the way Chris has expanded the story to become solid feature length material... "This is probably one of the most ambitious stories from Books of Blood for two reasons. First, the original story is only four pages long, so the writer, Chris, has had to add a great deal of his own material, which he has brilliantly done. Second, because this is a story about the devil. There are inevitably going to be people looking at it in the light of Hellraiser. Chris has proved even in his first draft that he has unique gifts for highly intelligent but still visceral scares." E-mail To Revelations By Clive Barker, 3 July 2008 Chris Monfette : "In our discussions of the Books of Blood, Clive had asked which of the stories were my favorite, to which I responded 'Down, Satan!' Despite it's relative length, it's something to which I've always connected, not simply because we've all struggled with issues of religion - and the seeming absence of God in those moments when we most need him - but because I felt it reflected, in a sense, the more human experience of our relationship with our parents. The idea that, as adolescents and twenty-somethings - and even into adulthood proper - it can often feel as if the only way to garner any real emotion or recognition from our 'fathers' is to evoke the negative - easier, sometimes, to piss off than please. There's something sad and tragic in that - and all too real - and when I mentioned that to Clive, it opened up a path through which a four-page story could be expanded into a feature film. We've found, I think, a way to really make it work, and I must say - if I can get away with saying so - that it's coming along very well. There's drama and scale and tension and horror and if we can succeed at striking the proper balance, I suspect we should have something very evocative and intensely original. But that's just me doing my own PR. The only judge who matters on this is Clive, so ask me again when the gavel falls! " E-mail To Revelations By Chris Monfette, 18 June 2008 Clive Barker's Midnight Meat Train ...The Midnight Picture Show plans for the Films of Blood have been backed, Variety reported in May 2005, by finance from Lakeshore Entertainment and distribution by Lionsgate for the first movie - The Midnight Meat Train. Jeff Buhler adapted the story which had a 'polish' by Clive. The film was originally scheduled to be directed by Patrick Tatopoulous (who previously worked with Clive on design concepts for Saint Sinner). Filming, in New York and Montreal, was originally scheduled to begin on the 17th October 2005. A revised start date of the summer of 2006 was then disrupted, with Fangoria reporting that Tatopoulous had pulled out of directing Midnight Meat Train, citing (in Fangoria's words) 'a busy schedule and other factors'... Ryuhei Kitamura finally took the reins as director. December 2006 saw Variety report that Bradley Cooper had been cast as photographer Leon Kaufmann, and February 2007 brought confirmation that Vinnie Jones (playing serial killer, Mahogany) and Brooke Shields (as an art gallery owner) would take supporting roles. Leslie Bibb was been added as Kaufmann's girlfriend, Maya, and also starring are Roger Bart ('Hostel: Part II,' TV’s 'Desperate Housewives'), Peter Jacobson ('Good Night, and Good Luck'), Barbara Eve Harris (TV’s 'Prison Break'), and UFC mixed martial arts fighter Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson. As shooting got underway, Clive recounted that the story had been relocated from New York to LA. Citing the prohibitive costs of shooting in New York, Clive decided to re-locate the whole story rather than fraudulently dressing up LA as New York and said, "It would have been ridiculous to pass off one city as another when LA has it's own perfectly good subway..." But... back to the original plans, the movie's final setting is indeed New York... Check out the Lionsgate site (and trailer) here and head to Apple to have the trailer playing on your iPod as you ride the train... Early reports of a shortening to "The Midnight Train" were wide of the mark. Pushed back from its original 16 May 2008 opening date, Lionsgate settled on a 1 August 2008 release date for this R-rated movie but in just a contractual 100 screens - and at dollar theatres at that... See Clive's appeal against that here.... CDs of both the soundtrack and the filmscore are now available for pre-order... The world première of Midnight Meat Train was at the Fantasia film festival in Montreal at midnight on 19 July 2008. The next opportunity to catch the Train was at midnight on Friday 25 July at the Gaslamp Stadium in San Diego as part of ComicCon - a screening that sold out wiithin 24 hours of tickets being made available - and at which Clive again encouraged fans to register their disapproval at Lionsgate's handling of the movie (see footage here). LA fans can catch another midnight screening at the Nuart Theatre's Cine Insomnia, 15 August 2008. UK fans can see the movie screened at the Film4 Frightfest on 23 August and again at the GoreZone Weekend of Horror on 18 October, ahead of a reported UK release date of 31 October (putting it up against Quantum Of Solace)... See our exclusive production photo, more production photos and the movie synopsis here on our Midnight Meat Train news page "Dread we have a draft, and again I hope that's a movie we can get going next year. The same with an extraordinary draft of The Midnight Meat Train, which we have just turned in. These will all be independent movies. When I say independent, I mean they won't go thru a major studio most likely. That will give us a certain latitude in the making of them, which I think is useful. Particularly useful for The Midnight Meat Train, because the subject matter is so intense. It's a story readers really like. I still get a lot letters about that story. I want to make sure that if we do it, or rather when we do it, we do it justice. That really means doing it as a hard R, none of this PG-13. Not that I necessarily have anything against PG-13 horror movies. The Ring was PG-13 wasn't it? It was pretty intense, but I think it's just easier if you can just go the whole distance. I think there is a taste coming back in the audience for the really intense experience, which is great." Confessions By Craig Fohr, Lost Souls, 1 August 2003 (note - full text online at Lost Souls - see links page) "[The Midnight Meat Train]'s the first movie we're going to do and it's scary as shit. And the reason it's the first movie we're going to do is to sort of put our mark in the sand. It was always - from its title onwards - it was always, 'OK - here we go - I'm not here to make you laugh, I'm not here to reassure you...' I always thought that was a strong horror title - you know, like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: there are two words in that title, 'chainsaw' and 'massacre', and the two words 'midnight ' and 'meat' - they are words that signify you're going to see some no-holds-barred horror. No-holds-barred horror - and I wanted to do that." 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 have two 'go' films right now: Midnight Meat Train and Plague... and if things stay on schedule, Midnight Meat Train will go into pre-production next month." The Hellbound Art : Memory, Fantasy And Filigree By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 10 February 2005 (note - full text here) "The Midnight Meat Train, the first long story in the Books of Blood, is going to be shot in New York probably in this summer. We have a script and we have an idea about the directive but I can’t share because we haven’t done the final contract stuff - but it’s something the people will know." Clive Barker On The Phone By [Thomas Hemmerich], That's Clive!, 29 March 2005 (note - full text online at www.clivebarker.de) "[Midnight Meat Train] isn't special effects driven, but there are a lot of effects in the final reel - physical effects, not CGI effects. When they come up, they've got to be great, and Patrick [Tatopoulous] has a handle on all that... "I'm seeing a lot of what I'll call 'soft horror' around and not a lot of 'hard horror' - certainly not from American [filmmakers]. There's a lot of PG-13s and ghost/apparition kind of stuff. I've always liked my horror harder and I thought this was a good time to say, 'Hey, we've got this body of stories, let's bring a different sensibility to horror audiences.' " Barker's Midnight Meat Train On Track By Dave Alexander, Rue Morgue, No 47, July 2005 "We’re making a movie called The Midnight Meat Train and we’re making that it Montreal and in New York and it’s being directed by Patrick Tatopoulous who was the special effects guy who did Independence Day and he’s a really cool guy." Jump Tribe Panel San Diego Comic Con, 14 July 2005 "Midnight Meat Train will be shot this year and will be directed by Patrick Tatopoulous. He's obviously doing the effects. I did a pass on the script and it's a very cool movie." Visions In Paint And Celluloid By Carnell, Fangoria, No.247, October 2005 "I do know that Midnight Meat Train... [is] scheduled to go in the next few months. We have a lead actor for Midnight Meat Train on board so we are waiting til next week when the guys get back from Cannes, having made the foreign sales, to see just how much money we're going to actually have to play with." You Called, He Came... By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 2 and 3 June 2006 (note: full text here) "Midnight Meat Train... is being shot now. We’re actually in the second week. The stuff I’ve seen so far looks wonderful, though I’ve been in the game far too long to trust dailies - you know, you have to see the movie - but the performances are lovely and I think things are looking very, very good." A Spiritual Retreat By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 26 March 2007 (note - full text here) “It’s finished. The score is being prepped. We have a March opening date. It’s incredibly intense. It’s very tough stuff. I’ve been very happy with it. It’s very scary. Ryuhei Kitamura did a hell of a job with the movie. Is it the short story? No. It’s his own take on the short story, which I like." 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/) "In terms of just the common-sense of not being up against Narnia and then Indiana Jones, I’m not disappointed at all [by the push-back of the release date] - I’m relieved. I wish they’d never announced that first date - we always knew when Indiana Jones was and I never knew why they would do this suicidal thing in the first place. Now I’m just glad it’s gone back. There are a lot of politics right now going on and I’m very much just staying away from it and burying my head in Abarat and painting and, actually photographing and there’s not much I can do when the people who are responsible for release dates and the marketing of pictures get together in a room, they have no interest in me, they have no interest in my opinion." Pivotal Voices: Was, Is And Will Be By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 11 April 2008 (note - full text here) Ryuhei Kitamura : "From day one I've told Clive we have to create a new icon of horror heroes and I think this Mahogany will be the new classic horror icon... "I changed the script and somehow Clive read an in-process draft and was very angry... I went to his house and acted out the scene and explained everything and after ten minutes he said, 'I like it, you solved all the problems.' I'm a fan so I know I'd be upset if someone messed up his great book, but I'm trying to make something better otherwise I wouldn't have come all the way from Japan to do this." Production Report: "Midnight Meat Train" By Jason Guerrasio, indieWIRE, 1 May 2007 (note - full text online at www.indiewire.com) Vinnie Jones :"It's one hell of a movie... It's just in your face, raw as they come. There is [a twist] at the end, yeah, there certainly is at the end. The reason why I'm doing it." Jones Rides The Meat Train By Patrick Lee, Sci-Fi Wire, 20 March 2007 (Note: full text online at www.scifi.com) Vinnie Jones :"Saw? Hostel? Halloween? Midnight Meat Train, [is] so ridiculous it's the king of all horror movies... "Look, you see me, right, and I get two passengers on the train, I hook them up and I skin them, you actually see me skinning them - pulling the skins off of human beings. You ever seen that?... "I just got fitted for these contact lenses which will drain blood out, so, you know, it really is going to look like my eyes are pouring blood." Movie File By Shawn Adler and Larry Carroll, MTV.com, 28 March 2007 (Note: full text online at www.mtv.com) Vinnie Jones :"I've never seen so much blood [on a film]... Literally, big gallons of blood. We're on the train and I have to keep throwing it in there. That's the part of acting I don't like. I change [into costume] and I'm like 'Don't get too much blood on me!' Ryuhei has been great, the man's speaks good English - it's harder to understand Bradley Cooper." Jones Spills Mucho Blood in Meat Train By Ryan Rotten, Shock Till You Drop.com, 20 April 2007 (Note: full text online at www.shocktillyoudrop.com) Ryuhei Kitamura : "I had been looking for the right project for a couple of years... "Twenty years ago I read Midnight Meat Train and it left a real impression on me. I love the original story and admire Clive Barker and I said to them, 'I would love to do this, but I cannot believe the script is going to be any good. I know that this is too good to be true.' But they sent me the script and it was excellent." Night Train To Terror By [ ], SFX, No 158, July 2007 Vinnie Jones : "This is a strange guy I'm playing. We don't know if he is 200 or 300 years old. This guy, to me, he could be like a robot - it wouldn't surprise me if you tore his skin off and he was made of metal." Night Train To Terror By [ ], SFX, No 158, July 2007 Ryuhei Kitamura : "From day one I met Clive, and I'd been telling him, 'We have to create another new horror hero.' 'Cause there is none right? I'm a big figure collector myself but I've been buying the same thing you know? Freddie Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, Pinhead, and that's it! That's it! No other movie in the past twenty years reached that level of an icon right? That's why I ended up buying twenty Pinheads [collector's items]. I told the producer and I told Clive, that we're going to have to create something. That's why I had a discussion with my costume designer Chris Lawrence, and with Vinnie [Jones] himself. We ended up with this '50s kind of cool suit and super-cool bag. He has this iconic hammer. We designed it. They showed me a bunch of hammers and none of them were... it has to be... A weapon is, you know it should be very iconic right? Like Freddie's claw, Jason's machete, whatever. So we kind of designed a super cool hammer and he kills with that. Very scary, oh so cool. So this Mahogany is... of course he's very creepy, very weird, very scary but at the same time he's very super cool. It's a very thin line because if he goes too cool, it doesn't work. But so far he's fucking scary, yeah, and visually he's great... "He only says one word in this movie, that's it. So I'm very happy that Vinnie chose this project to do that. He's just a pure killing machine and he says only one word and still Vinnie says yes, so we are really lucky to have him... "That's the one thing I've been telling my producers from day one is you know this film has to have this '80s feel. The '80s was the golden age of the horror movies and you know we're kind of losing that. So what I wanted to bring it back to, that kind of energy." Clive Barker’s Midnight Meat Train - Exclusive From The Set By Staci Layne Wilson, Horror.com, 5 September 2007 (note - full text online at www.horror.com) Ryuhei Kitamura : "This is very special; they’ve been making those stupid Hellraiser sequels for too long. I asked Clive, ‘Why are you doing them? He said, ‘No, that’s not me.’ I was always so disappointed when a new Hellraiser came along. I read Midnight Meat Train exactly 20 years ago when they first published [the Japanese edition of Books of Blood] and I got it the day it came out. I still have the first edition. It’s a great opportunity to reset everything and reintroduce what kind of genius Clive Barker, this motherfucker means to the world... “This is not only a horror film, it’s a love story - a tragic love story. Even Mahogany; he doesn’t say anything, but he has many stories we can see from his face, his every movement. With Train I want to go back to the ‘80s - the Friday the 13th days, the Halloween days, My Bloody Valentine, Maniac, The Prowler - that was the golden age, and I want to bring that feeling back to my movie. From day one, I’ve been telling everyone we’re making a classic.” Horror In Training By Ryan Turek, Fangoria, No 268, November 2007 Jonathan Sela (DP) : "You want to refresh peoples eyes and make them eager to see different things. I think that's as much has a lot of following I think we're trying to do a lot of different things with the way we're lighting it and the camera, you know, minimizing the coverage and just finding interesting angles that tell a story we're not necessarily doing the typical things which we do a lot, I can't be specific 'cause there's so many different situations but I think that's what me and him tried really hard to do is just try to avoid 'Oh, there's somebody coming around the corner and it's scary so like you'd set up the typical chase.' Clive Barker’s Midnight Meat Train - Exclusive From The Set By Staci Layne Wilson, Horror.com, 5 September 2007 (note - full text online at www.horror.com) Vinnie Jones : [Re working with Rampage Jackson] “That was a tough scene. In fact, he has to be one of my toughest opponents of all time - on and off the screen. He is one of the strongest men I have ever encountered. He really grabbed hold of me during our fight scene. I can tell you that this will be a very real-looking battle - and he is a great fella.” Vinnie Jones Talks Midnight Meat Train By Callum Wadell, Fangoria.com, 10 January 2008 (Note: full text online at www.fangoria.com) Vinnie Jones : "Midnight Meat Train is going to be really edge of your seat stuff. I play a character called Mahogany and my job is to feed these mysterious beings with human flesh, but now I'm coming to the end. I have been doing this for a long time - I mean, you don't even know how old Mahogany is - he could be 200 or 300 years old, we never know. He's a strange guy. He has no expression and I only say one word in this movie, but he's frightening. There's this journalist tracking me down, played by Bradley Cooper, but what he doesn't realise is that I'm also following his every move - and that leads to a great little twist...” Vinnie Jones By Callum Wadell, SFX, No 168, April 2008 Anthony DiBlasi : "We really wanted to make Clive's movies Clive's way - hardcore, close to the mythology. We spent a lot of time [getting Midnight Meat Train off the ground] independently and through other means. Lionsgate was set up to distribute, but our original plan to make the film fell apart - so they turned us to Lakeshore.” Gore Aboard The Midnight Meat Train By Ryan Turek, Fangria, No 273, May 2008 Joe Daley : "We were told to make a list of Japanese directors to work with because that was the direction [Lakeshore] wanted to go. Ryuhei then came recommended.” Gore Aboard The Midnight Meat Train By Ryan Turek, Fangria, No 273, May 2008 The Book Of Blood ...This project has been quietly building in the lee of other higher-profile Midnight Picture Show films - adapted and directed by John Harrison from the book-end stories to Clive's Books of Blood, the Scottish shoot has progressed well through December 2007 into the New Year. Joe Daley continues in the producer's chair and you might keep an eye out for a certain Mr Bradley in front of the cameras (as Tollington) together with Sophie Ward (Dr Mary Florescu), Jonas Armstrong (Simon McNeal) and Simon Bamford (Derek). Following exposure at the 2008 European Film Market, and the successful completion of the FX shoot in London the film is now in post-production... See Joe Daley's Book of Blood Production Journal exclusively here on Revelations! "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." Sowing The Seeds Of The Story Tree By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 28 August and 4 September 2006 (note - full text here) "I don’t believe a movie’s a go movie until all the money is in the bank... but if everything is set then the movie will have been shot by Christmas. You know, we’ll be back over here editing. "It still remains the dream, my hope, if we get to make a lot of these movies, to package them up so that we will have a lot of the Books of Blood as full-length movies. John Harrison’s doing the Book of Blood - the Ur story, the root story - you know the story of an older woman’s love for a young trickster and it’s just the right kind of story - and we have a concept for the dead, for the ghosts, which is without precedent..." Hellfire And The Demonation By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 7 September 2007 (note - full text here) "John did a superb piece of work with the expansion and reinvention of the story, because it is really very simple. He filled it out, gave it meat and deepened the characters. My understanding is that we’re looking at shooting it in Glasgow, which is wonderful. It’s great that we should be going back to Britain, that [the] house where the dead walk, where the highways of the dead converge, should be situated in one of the bleaker cities. It’s perfect!" Gone And Back Again By Carnell, Fangoria, No 268, November 2007 "The Book of Blood is being shot right now in Scotland. I'm thinking that'll probably be out at the end of this year. The guy who plays the English 'Robin Hood,' which you get on BBC Britain, plays the kid who lies about the ghosts he's seeing. And the ghosts take revenge on him by writing their stories on his body." Barker Talks About His Baby 'Hellraiser' On Its Birthday By Robert K. Elder, Chicago Tribune, 11 January 2008 "[I'm heading] to London to help with the final week of shooting for The Book of Blood, the original story from the first book, which we’ve made and is just knockout. It’s killer. And we’ll shoot that and then hopefully have that out by this time next year." The Wildclaw Clive Barker Interview By Charlie Athanas, Wildclaw Theatre.com, 4 March 2008 (note: full text online at www.wildclawtheater.com) [Re. relaxed atmosphere on-set] "That’s one of the reasons why I like John so much, not just as a director but as a human being, you know, that’s his style. He is very low-key, he’s not a dramatic fellow, he just gets on with it. Once in a while you’ll catch a little bit of tension in his voice because he’s unhappy but it’s very seldom. You know, the days were all made and the shots were got and I think a fine time was had by all... "[Jonas Armstrong's] performance was extremely brave, he dropped trou with no problem, very believable and very sexy, without trying too hard, you know? None of that phoney stuff you get in Hollywood... And I had dinner at Grouchos on the last night, just before I left London, with Sophie Ward and what a sweet and charming woman she was, so that was great." Pivotal Voices: Was, Is And Will Be By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 11 April 2008 (note - full text here) John Harrison : "I’m about to start an adaptation of one of his Books of Blood stories for a series of movies that they’re making... Book of Blood. I’m going to do the first one. We’re going to turn that into a movie which I hope to direct. Clive and I have been looking for ways to keep working with one another. He was very happy with the adaptation of Abarat, and I was happy that he was happy." John Harrison (Effects) By Devin Faraci, Cinematic Happenings Under Development, 6 November 2005 (Note: full text online at www.chud.com) John Harrison : "We had become friends through the Abarat process and [Clive] liked my Dune mini-series a whole lot, so we started talking about why did I do one of these. So I have taken the first and the last short stories of the books of blood collection and I’ve turned them into one movie called Clive Barker's Books of Blood. The screenplay is finished, we’re putting the financing together, and I’m hopeful that we’ll be in production after I finish George’s movie. "[Clive]’d be one of the producers, of course. He has been reading every step of the way the drafts of the script that I co-wrote with another young writer named Darren Silverman. He’s very excited about it, and he will be involved creatively. Even though I will be directing, he’ll be the go to guy." Producer John Harrison Talks To iF About Romero's Diary Of The Dead - Part One By Sean Elliott, iF Magazine, 1 September 2006 (Note: full text online at http://ifmagazine.com) Doug Bradley : "It's set in the present day, but I play a character called Tollington who has been dead for pretty much a century. He was an occultist who occupied the house in Tollington Place (mentioned in Clive's original story). It's a brief but memorable appearance and I'm looking forward to it. I was up there yesterday for a photo shoot (for portrait and newspaper article which appear elsewhere in the movie and in discussion with the make-up department, agreed that my current cut does not sell the period and so we agreed to shave my head completely. It works too, because any similarities between Tollington and a certain Aleister Crowley would not be at all inappropriate..." Doug In The Book Of Blood Movie! By Doug Bradley, Message board post at Doug Bradley.co.uk, 3 December 2007 (Note: full post online at www.dougbradley.co.uk) John Harrison : "The shoot is going very well, and the cast is all British - although our lead, Sophie Ward, is playing her part as an American. The male lead is Jonas Armstrong, who is a rising star in the UK; he has previously headlined the BBC series Robin Hood. There could also be a surprise in the works for the character of Wyburd…but more on that later.” Director’s Update: Barker Book Of Blood Film By Callum Wadell, Fangoria.com, 10 January 2008 (Note: full text online at www.fangoria.com) Dread ...Following the demise of the planned version of Dread for Fox (See 'Films That Got Away' for this and Keith Clark's earlier adaptation), plans are now in hand for Seraphim's Anthony DiBlasi to shoot his own script for Dread in Scotland in 2008. We continue to watch and wait in the hope that justice is finally done to this treatise on the strange characters you can come across at University... "I think Anthony's going to start shooting Dread in Scotland in June... Dread will be modest, it won't be a huge movie, it’s essentially a haunted house story... It doesn’t have a lot of prosthetics and so on, it’s very realistic, it's not fantastical and he's written an amazing script... so that will be the second of the movies we're making from the books." Pivotal Voices: Was, Is And Will Be By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 11 April 2008 (note - full text here) Pig Blood Blues ...Following the demise of Vincent Perreira's script for Seraphim in 2003/4, (see Films That Got Away...) the Pig Blood Blues project was handed over to Seraphim's own Anthony Diblasi. With final amendments being made to the script, current plans are for pre-production to start in 2008... "I do know that... Pig Blood Blues [is] scheduled to go in the next few months..." You Called, He Came... By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 2 and 3 June 2006 (note: full text here) "Pig Blood Blues, which is one of the stories from the first Books of Blood, has been adapted brilliantly by Anthoni Diblasi who works with me here at Seraphim Films, and it looks as though Mike Medavoy at Phoenix wants to so it, so we're very excited about that... I think Pig Blood Blues is relatively imminent in the sense that the script is finished and everybody loves it." Weird Fantasy By Joe Nazzaro, Starburst, Special No 76, July 2006 "Anthony's Pig Blood Blues is phenomenal and has been bought and he will direct it." Pinhead's Progress By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 15 and 22 December 2006 (note: full text here) “We’re doing another movie called Pig Blood Blues next year. All those stories are off the beaten track. They’re not your conventional horror story.” 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/) Anthony Diblasi : "We're doing that one through Phoenix... We'll be casting soon. Being a foreign sales and independent picture we're not setting up domestic distribution for it yet but we're gearing up for another five months, could be sooner... "To me, 'Blues' is a twisted take on a classic ghost story... I love stories about outsiders and those kids at this juvenile detention center were certainly outsiders. It has this amazing 'Lord of the Flies' element with all these boys trapped together and this evil entity is stuck in there with them. Where the short story just touches on the supernatural element, I focused a lot on making it a ghost story. But keeping the pig, of course." Books of Blood Movie Updates By Ryan Rotten, Shock Till You Drop.com, 1 May 2007 (Note: full text online at www.shocktillyoudrop.com) Age Of Desire ...Age of Desire appears to have dropped down the list a little, and whilst minds are concentrated on 2008's projects details are currently few and far between... "[Next is] Age of Desire, which is a story about an aphrodisiac which gets out of control and the more you have it in your system, the more you do stuff you hadn’t even thought of before, and we’re going to make that next year and that’s going to be fun." Jump Tribe Panel San Diego Comic Con, 14 July 2005 "Well, it's interesting, we have a take which I really like. It's a hard one, so to speak. It'll be interesting to see whether we can make it fly. I'll be the first one to say that I don't know how we'll do it either, but man, I'd love to give it a go." Visions In Paint And Celluloid By Carnell, Fangoria, No.247, October 2005 The Poe Project ...Back in 1998, Barker devised a series of three pictures for MGM - either adaptations of, or scripts based on themes from, Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, with Barker's Poe tribute, New Murders in the Rue Morgue, thrown in for good measure... Also cited was a biographical tale of Poe and his editor, and another entitled 'Canes Bone'. However, there were perhaps two other Poe projects being floated at that time (including Craig Rosenberg's 'Nevermore') and the project was never realised.... 2006 saw The Hollywood Reporter running news of a 'young adult thriller' centred on Poe's ghost and his nightmares, awoken by a group of teenagers. Walden Media are Seraphim's partners for this project in which Clive will work on the story - loosely based on both Poe's life and his stories - and produce, with Anthony DiBlasi and Joe Daley executive producing. 2007 has seen continuing progress on this, with DiBlasi working on last script amendments... "We've been invited to do some Edgar Allan Poe adaptations for MGM. It could be fun. We're just looking at that right now and trying to make a deal. That would be something I would be interested in doing, absolutely. Poe tends to have been dealt with, I think, on the cheap side. I would like to see him get a little bit more money in his bank. That's something we're shaping up and trying to see if we can do it. We've got a lot of things going on. I'm very happy to have a lot of things in the pipeline." Confessions By [Stephen Dressler and Cheryl Bentzen], Lost Souls, Issue 10, June 1998 "I think we might have a chance with this project to bring the character of Poe alive for a new audience and weave his shadowy existence into the dark enchantments of his stories so that for our protagonist, and for our audience, it will be difficult to be sure where one finishes and the other takes flight." Barker Pairs With Walden For Poe Thrills By Nicole Sperling , The Hollywood Reporter, 30 November 2006 (note - full text online at www.hollwoodreporter.com) Alex Schwartz (Walden Media, Executive VP Production): "This project is an opportunity for us to reimagine a genre that is generally associated with an older audience... By focusing on mood and atmosphere rather than blood and guts, Clive Barker brings a smart, literate take on the horror genre that will expose young audiences to its great literary underpinnings. It is only appropriate that the grandfather of modern horror fiction, Edgar Allan Poe, provides the fulcrum for the story." Barker Pairs With Walden For Poe Thrills By Nicole Sperling , The Hollywood Reporter, 30 November 2006 (note - full text online at www.hollwoodreporter.com) 2Gether 4Ever ...Early November 2005 saw the release of news from Queso Grande Productions of Seraphim's involvement in this projected examination of the dark side of a teenage girl's relationships... [ ] : "Queso Grande Productions proudly announces it has joined with Seraphim Films and Aint It Cool Productions to produce 2gether 4ever later this year. Written by W. Boyd Ford (Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat), the film will be produced by Harry Knowles of Aint-It-Cool-News.com, Jacky Lee Morgan (Waiting, Bully, Love Liza) of Queso Grande Productions and Joe Daley and Anthony DiBlasi of Seraphim. Clive Barker (Hellraiser, Nightbreed) will executive produce. Lastly, Lions Gate Film will be handling the domestic distribution of 2gether 4ever. "New blood flows as Ford and Morgan join forces to direct the story of a teen girl and her relationship with high school, parents, a ghost and some ghastly goings-on. The duo previously teamed up on the campier side of horror to write and produce H. G. Lewis’s Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat. With 2gether 4ever, Morgan and Ford turn their talents to exploring the darker side of the genre. "Bestselling author Clive Barker has brought us numerous horrific projects including the iconic Hellraiser series. Seraphim Films is currently in pre production on Midnight Meat Train and post production on The Plague. Seraphim’s Midnight Picture Show will also be developing another sinister feature with Queso Grande entitled Scape-Goats based on the short story by Barker." 2Gether 4Ever Press Release By [ ], 2Gether 4Ever Press Release, 7 November 2005 Harry Knowles : "It was the whole thing. The structure, the tone, the basic theme and the potential I saw in Jacky & Boyd's script. These two guys have been working behind the scenes for a lot of years. Nicest guys in the world, big dreams, but absolutely egoless. Basically - the sort of people that you want to see make it. They asked for my help, invited me into their creative circle to see if I could help. That and... well I really want to make a horror film that hurts. Not just because of gore and on-screen violence, but because you got caught up in character, the story and the relationships. Plus - I wanted to go the Indie route on one of the films to learn and work in that world. Not because I'm fed up with studios. I'm actually really enjoying that process (so far) - but there's a speed and an excitement to low budget film that is viscerally exciting. That - and well - there's something that we've concocted in the film that - well I can't wait to sit at the back of the theater and watch an audience react to. If it goes the way we think, it could be amazing. Then again, it could just be ass. But there's a lot of folks that'll be doing this stuff for the right reasons. Just hope the fates smile with us along the way." What The Hell Is 2gether 4ever And Why Is Clive Barker Associated With It? By Harry Knowles, Ain't It Cool News, 7 November 2005 (text online at www.aintitcool.com) The Thief of Always ...After the animated, live action and the ILM CGI versions all fell by the Hollywood wayside (see 'Films That Got Away...'), the project became stuck in limbo. However, new plans were made for Thief in 2004 - giving growing optimism that a great movie adaptation of this much-loved novel could finally be made. Following Clive's confirmation that Kelly Asbury, with his impeccable credentials in animation and illustration, would be both adapting and directing the project, little further was heard for the best part of twelve months. February 2006, however, sees The Hollwood Reporter sharing the first comment we have seen from Asbury himself which will encourage those who feared that the project was losing momentum. The movie (being produced by Seraphim for Fox) will still be live-action, as hoped, and Clive will remain close at hand to produce... "Thief Of Always is going to be a picture directed by Kelly Asbury, who just did Shrek 2 - who’s an amazing guy." Barnes and Noble Stage Presentation By Brein Lopez, LA Festival of Books, 25 April 2004 "There have been many different versions [of Thief], but somehow it never happened, until this past Christmas when I was doing a book signing with ten other children's authors. Kelly Asbury was sitting next to me and we got to know each other quickly, because we were having fun drawing for kids. He was just finishing Shrek 2, and said, 'I don't want to do any more CGI; I really want to direct live action movies for kids.' I said, 'Stay where you are,' and went to the shelf and took a copy of Thief of Always off the shelf and gave it to him. This was Saturday, and I said, 'Call me when you've read it,' so late afternoon Sunday, he called and said, 'I want to do this!' Fox bought it, and Kelly has begun writing it, so I think it's finally going to happen." Entering Abarat By Joe Nazzaro, Starburst, No 318, January 2005 (note - interview took place 2004) "I was at an event organised by Storyopolis, which is a really cool children's bookstore and actually art store as well, in the sense that it sells the artwork from illustrated books - originals, reproductions and so on - it has a little gallery attached. So Storyopolis arranged a gathering of, I think there were maybe fifteen authors who had also done illustration - maybe that wasn't the theme, maybe it was just authors. But I happened to be sitting next-door to Kelly Asbury - Kelly, who is an author of books for really young kids, is both an illustrator and a writer and his name begins with an 'A', and I began with a 'B' so we were sitting next-door to one another, as everybody's in alphabetical order. And we instantly got on well - there was, it was like we'd been friends a long time, instantly. And he had, beside his work as a writer and an illustrator, he was also, is also an animator and a director of animation. He directed Spirit, which is a Dreamworks picture of a couple of years ago. He most recently directed Shrek 2, which I think is now the number five best, most successful movie, in fiscal terms, ever made - so he's kinda golden around town! Now, Shrek 2 had not come out when we first met; he was still putting the final touches both to the picture and the sound of the music and was kind of exhausted but excited by the prospect of it, of the movie's release (and his own release from the movie!). And he said he wanted to make a live-action movie next and he wanted to make something for a younger crowd. He wanted it to be live-action and I got up from my chair and went over to the shelves and took out a copy of Thief of Always (paid for it!) brought it back to Kelly and said, 'Here - how about this?' - it literally worked like that. So, this was on a Saturday; Sunday night he called me and he'd read the book: 'I'm in. I want to make this movie!' So before I came away with David to England and to Holland, Kelly and Anthony and I made a tour of the major studios and the mini-majors with the book and with an extraordinary tool which Anthony had created - which was a trailer for the movie which he'd made up of pieces of other movies - the most extraordinary thing you've ever seen. And it really helped in the selling of the movie; people instantly got what this movie would do, how to sell it, how to take it into the world. So, we had a bunch of offers... "I promised Kelly that I would be there for him in this process because we've become friends; I like him immensely and the project has always been important to me... Kelly respects my vision and I respect his, so we kinda make a good team. And I think it's been great weaving Anthony into all of this, because he's also brought his own gifts to this process - this trailer has been a revelation to me. He brought it over to me on DVD, he'd burned it onto DVD, I hadn't seen any of it, 'though I suggested some movies he might like to excerpt from. I had seen nothing and I put it in and he was sitting on the sofa and I was sitting on the sofa and we're watching it and there's tears pouring down my face at the end of it and I turned to him and I said, 'You son of a bitch - how dare you make me weep about my own fucking story!' And I'm not the only one it had that effect on. He did a remarkable thing." 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 Thief of Always, written and directed by Kelly Asbury, is high on the list, because Fox is very passionate about making that work. I’m really pleased, because Kelly is a very smart man, and the notion of him writing and directing this is just perfect. It’s been agonizing to see the many versions of Thief of Always - at one point with Bernard Rose and then various screenplays, and then on to the animated version but somehow never settling. I have great faith that with Kelly at the helm, it will finally come to fruition. "The interesting thing is that in the 10 years that I’ve been developing Thief of Always, the technology has caught up with the way to do it now, so we can really make all the seasons arrive in one day. We can watch an entire environment turn into Halloween-time in a heartbeat. We can see an entire house come to life, which would have been much harder to do 10 years ago, so in many ways, it’s all to the good. It may have taken a while, but we got there." Clive Barker’s Dark Plans By Joe Nazzaro, www.fangoria.com, 2 December 2004 "Thief of Always is coming on amazingly well - I'm producing that - we're turning the script into Fox next week, which is very exciting and there is great enthusiasm at Fox for that." There And Back Again: Touring The Abarat By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 30 November 2004 (note - full text here) "The town is fantasy crazy, everything is going forward and Kelly Asbury will turn in what I hope will be the shooting script of Thief of Always in about a month's time. The work he's done is unbelievable, so that's very exciting and there's great enthusiasm over at Fox about that." The Hellbound Art : Memory, Fantasy And Filigree By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 10 February 2005 (note - full text here) "We have the “Thief of Always” which is at 20th Century Fox and Kelly Asbury, who was one of the Co-directors of Shrek 2 is writing and directing that. And it will be a life action movie. And he will turn the script into Fox into a month’s time. I have very high hopes on the movie. I think Kelly is an incredibly talented man and I think Fox is excited about the project. Well, they certainly seemed to be." Clive Barker On The Phone By [Thomas Hemmerich], That's Clive!, 29 March 2005 (note - full text online at www.clivebarker.de) "Thief of Always is at Fox and hopefully we will have that next year." Jump Tribe Panel San Diego Comic Con, 14 July 2005 "Thief of Always - I know Kelly is working on what we hope is the final draft. Huge enthusiasm still over at Fox to make this movie. It's just taking its time and that's where it is." You Called, He Came... By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 2 and 3 June 2006 (note: full text here) "Right now, we have The Thief of Always over at Fox and we're doing some final polishes on the script, so we're very much hoping that they will make the movie. There's no guarantee, but they seem to like us over there, so we'll see whether that happens." Weird Fantasy By Joe Nazzaro, Starburst, Special No 76, July 2006 Kelly Asbury : "I've worked for a long time in the storyboard process... My experience on 'Thief' so far has been charmed because the story gets better with each iteration. We've all been really happy with the consensus of ideas and notes on the script." Asbury Goes Live Action With 'Thief' By Sheigh Crabtree, The Hollywood Reporter, 7 February 2006 (note - full text online at www.hollywoodreporter.com) Joe Daley : "The Thief of Always is still in development at Fox and is going great. Kelly Asbury, who directed Shrek 2, is still on board but the strike unfortunately put the pin on a lot of our material." Fear Factory By [ ], SFX, No 168, April 2008 Bloody Mary ...Announced mid-September 2000, Barker and Seraphim Films signed a deal with Disney's Touchstone Pictures to produce a movie inspired by a 1997 non-fiction article, 'Myths Over Miami', written by Lynda Edwards. This article documented urban legends told and retold in the homeless shelters of South Florida, and was originally published in the Miami New Times. Two years on from that deal, after lingering at Touchstone, the movie was dropped - although Barker insisted that the project merely needed a more appropriate studio. By the summer of 2003, it looked like a home had been found for the movie with a small studio and hopes were raised for pre-production to start in 2004, but no sign of it just yet, and the 'Bloody Mary' which was created as the third in the Urban Legend series was unconnected with the Barker project... The screenplay, written by Silvio Horta (Urban Legend) concentrates on one particular urban legend, that of Bloody Mary, a monstrous, Everglades-based, vengeful bogeywoman who snatches the souls of children and lives in the supernatural plane between reality and illusion. There's nothing new about the legend of Bloody Mary - you might come across her in the guise of Mary Whales or even Mary Queen of Scots! The name Mary Worth recurrs fairly often as a character whose face was so badly scarred that her spirit seeks vengeance by scratching off the face of her victims. Like any good urban legend, it moulds itself to it's teller and it's audience, but many of the tales based on the story of Mary Worth involve invoking her spirit by calling her name thirteen times before a mirror - just as in this draft screenplay for Candyman... INT. BATHROOM - NIGHT Billy and Clara regard their reflections in the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet, arms around each other. They talk in whispers. CLARA : You ever heard of the Candyman? BILLY : No. CLARA : His right hand is sawn off. he has a hook jammed in the bloody stump. If you look in the mirror and say his name thirteen times, he'll appear behind you... (nibbles his ear) breathing down your neck. (Billy grins.) Wanna try it? BILLY : OK...Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, (he counts them off on his fingers) Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, (the thirteenth time) Can... Billy pauses, Clara laughs. CLARA : No one ever got past twelve! By Bernard Rose - May 1991 draft ...The storyline for the planned movie centres on a young man forced to do community service at a homeless shelter in Miami. There he befriends a group of children whose visions of demons seeping up from hell may or may not be real... "Fantasy works best when it's working on a lot of levels, [when] something has you really wondering, 'Is it real, or isn't it?'. These homeless kids are living in a world that's on that borderline, because they are living through the reality of social evils and abuse. What I wanted to do was to use the conventions of urban myth to express our anxieties about the real world. "This is not going to be a Hellraiser or a Candyman; as a 48 year-old man, I just don't make those kinds of pictures anymore. That sort of in-your-face gore is a young man's game. "We're not responding to the pressure coming out of Washington. This is going to be suspenseful and scary, but it's an aesthetic decision that it not be violent and gory..." Latest Hollywood Script Deals By [ ], Variety, 21 September 2000 "There was an article in the Miami New Times by journalist Lynda Edwards, called 'Myths Over Miami.' It was about the children of the city, particularly the homeless and poor, and how their imaginations have cooked up a curious mixture of urban legend, Catholicism and childhood lore to create something quite remarkable. "We went to Silvio Horta with an idea based on the article, and he came up with an outline that we worked on together. My team, Renee Rosen and Joe Daley, went out with Silvio last Monday and Tuesday and took meetings back-to-back, and we sold it by Tuesday evening to Disney... "It's nice that Disney is allowing me to have my identity as the frightmeister as well as somebody who's producing PG movies." The Dark Backward By Philip Nutman, Fangoria, No 200, March 2001 "Well, I understand [Phil & Sarah's] concern. It does feel as though this area of Urban Legends has been looked at rather closely of late. And one of the things that I've been talking to people about is the possible change of titles because I think that 'Bloody Mary' signifies that this project is a little too like other Urban Legends projects. It isn't. Actually it is very remote from that. A lot closer in tone to something like 'The Sixth Sense' to something like 'Urban Legend' or even 'Candyman 3.' There is a level of supernatural for sure, but really it is a psychological piece... "It was brought to me by my team, by Joe and Renee. This year has been an incredibly busy year... And what Renee and Joe are doing is looking over the proposals we get, the ideas that people, agents, send to us. Unfortunately we can't deal with unsolicited materials cause it just would be crazy. We will only go through agents. A lot of agents come to us especially after our success - my executive producing in Candyman or Gods and Monsters - and they will say, 'Will you come and watch over 'x' and 'y'?' So Joe and Renee read through a lot of stuff and every once in a while they will come to me with a piece that they liked, and with Bloody Mary I liked it also. There is a lot of stuff we have in our development file if you will. We are thinking of doing some stuff that is very, very far from your typical Clive Barker material: we are looking at doing some cartoons, a bunch of other fun stuff, but this one is probably closest to regular 'Clive Barker' material." Confessions By Craig Fohr and Kelly Shaw, Lost Souls, March 2001 (note - interview took place 14 December 2000) "Bloody Mary has just been turned in to Touchstone and they're very excited about that - so there's a lot of things on the movie side which I thought were going to be relatively slow, plodding projects which have suddenly picked up speed." Open Roads... What Price Wonderland? By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 3 April 2002 (note - full text here) "Eventually, we realised that Mary wasn't something we wanted to do with Touchstone, because it's just too intense. So we're going to find a new home for it. "One thing I like about it is that it doesn't have a villain, it has a villainess, I've always liked that. You can see it all the way back in the first Hellraiser movie in the character of Julia. And in Saint Sinner, we have some really cool female demons. But Mary is a very intense story and it needs somebody who is going to understand a scary, bloody film. We couldn't find that at Touchstone." Saint Clive By Chris Wyatt and Anthony C. Ferrante, Cinescape, Issue 66 and 67, November / December 2002 "Bloody Mary, we have somebody, this is not a name you would know, a guy who was one of the producers on a bunch of sort of independent hits over the last couple years. He's going to come on and help us co-produce. We are going to end up getting that made next year, which is great. Not with a major studio. It's kind of interesting, looking right now at a time when 28 Days Later is up to 35 million, or something like that, and there is a lot of really wonderful Japanese and Hong Kong horror movies out there on DVD doing pretty well. I think there's a chance that really really tough scary horror will make a comeback. I think it is incredibly encouraging that 28 Days Later has done so well." Confessions By Craig Fohr, Lost Souls, 1 August 2003 (note - full text online at Lost Souls - see links page) Lynda Edwards : "One demon is feared even by Satan. In Miami shelters, children know her by two names: Bloody Mary and La Llorona (the Crying Woman). She weeps blood or black tears from ghoulish empty sockets and feeds on children's terror. When a child is killed accidentally in gang crossfire or is murdered, she croons with joy. 'If you wake at night and see her,' a ten-year-old says softly, 'her clothes be blowing back, even in a room where there is no wind. And you know she's marked you for killing.' "The homeless children's chief ally is a beautiful angel they have nicknamed the Blue Lady. She has pale blue skin and lives in the ocean, but she is hobbled by a spell. 'The demons made it so she only has power if you know her secret name,' says Andre, whose mother has been through three rehabilitation programs for crack addiction. 'If you and your friends on a corner on a street when a car comes shooting bullets and only one child yells out her true name, all will be safe. Even if bullets tearing your skin, the Blue Lady makes them fall on the ground. She can talk to us, even without her name. She says: 'Hold on.' ' " Myths Over Miami By Lynda Edwards, Miami New Times, 5 June 1997 Ectosphere - The Movie ...The movie version of Ectokid ?? It may well be that the non-apearance of the much trumpeted Ectosphere game caused the project to mutate into a full length screenplay. The end of 1997 saw Fred Vicarel (Silo's scribe - see 'TV that got away...') doing re-writes, since when the trumpets have gone quiet on this one too, with the advent of Nickelodeon and Paramount's purchase of Ectokid (see below) being, perhaps, the final nail in its coffin... "There's a movie called Ectosphere, which is a dark science fiction movie, which we're doing with Spelling." A Graveside Chat With Clive Barker By Jim Moore, Deathrealm, Fall 1996 (note: interview took place in 1995) "When you have superstars with budgets in the tens of millions of dollars, using the risky imagery of horror films can get diluted. I've always believed that the best horror movies were scary because they looked at the world askew, they showed us a risky and dark vision. That kind of vision can only be put on the screen when you have trusting and creative partners. Seraphim has found that partnership in the people at Spelling." The World of Clive Barker By [Stephen Dressler and Cheryl Bentzen], Lost Souls Newsletter, 30th March 1998 Ectokid - The Feature ...A further attempt to pick up the unfulfilled storylines of the Razorline 'Barkerverse' looks like it has much going for it so far - with Nickelodeon Pictures and Paramount picking up both the feature film and the TV rights to Ectokid. (Details of the TV project are here.) But is this the reincarnation of the 'Ectosphere' project which languishes in development hell, or something completely different? Will the movie try to tackle the unused storylines of Ectokid meeting James Dean and Janis Joplin? As ever, time will tell... ...Unlike the TV version, expect Barker to produce the feature with Don Murphy whilst Joe Daley gets to exec produce. There's no doubt that the Disney deal has put Seraphim in a great position for selling Barker's not insubstantial back catalogue... "But we've got lots going on, as you can hear... Ectokid, the comic, has just been sold to Nickelodeon, the movie - which I will produce." Nips And Tucks, Tits And Fucks By Phil & Sarah Stokes, 10 July 2001 (note - full text here) "In Ecto-kid, the Other Side is here and now. This other world is our world - but not. It's everywhere, but nowhere... "I hope to create a franchisable world for Nickelodeon, but also one of the great, transcendent beauty; one that reconfigures people's expectations of what ghosts are, of what comes after death." Par, Nick Take 'Kid' For Ride By Claude Brodesser and Cathy Dunkley, Daily Variety, 13 August 2001 "I've done a 100-page treatment for Ectokid... Nickelodeon is going to do Ectokid - I think that's a long development process because it's an elaborate movie, but if they really go for it I think it's going to be pretty amazing. I think that's two or three years off." Open Roads... What Price Wonderland? By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 3 April 2002 (note - full text here) "We're also doing Ectokid, which was another of those comics from the Razorline series. We're doing that over at Nickelodeon with Don Murphy, who did From Hell recently and is doing League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, he's just about to produce that. Don and I are going to produce Ectokid. That's going to be fun." Clive And Kicking By Mike Watt, The Dark Side, Issue 101, February/March 2003 Don Murphy (producer) : "I am really excited to bring a master of suspense like Clive Barker to a new, family audience. It's an audience that Nickelodeon understands and reaches completely and very capably." Par, Nick Take 'Kid' For Ride By Claude Brodesser and Cathy Dunkley, Daily Variety, 13 August 2001 Click here for Films That Got Away... ...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.