The TV Series That Got Away...

Spirit City USA ...Early attempts to convince TV executives that Barker's material was suitable for the mainstream audience came a cropper on Spirit City USA. Was Roy Winchester, the wandering (dead) magician who has escaped Houdini-like from beyond the grave on the anniversary of his death but has unwittingly brought another hundred spirits through with him, a precurser to Christopher Lloyd's character in Quicksilver Highway almost a decade later...? "I'm doing a pilot for a TV series…the chances are Mick [Garris] and I'll be working on one, maybe two, TV pilots. I would executive produce and again provide the stories. Neither of them are out and out horror; both of them are dark fantasy. It's part of the attempt on my part to get access to a larger audience without watering the material down, without the material becoming bland. " Chains of Love By Mark Salisbury Fear, No 3, December 1988 "Spirit City turned out to be too weird for the sponsors [ABC-TV]. They wanted something a little bit tamer and Mick [Garris] and I felt we couldn't provide that. It was rather off the wall. [The main character is a dead magician] which was probably a bad start as far as ABC were concerned. It's a notion Mick and I will probably run with elsewhere. It's certainly an idea I'm totally committed to, and I think people will have fun with it. "Mick wrote the pilot with me overseeing its development as I was in the process of finishing off The Great And Secret Show. It's a series of ideas that deserve life in some form or other. I remain cynical about TV's ability to present the kind of material I favour. There are so many creative constraints, so many presumptions TV executives bring to any project about what will or will not work. When you talk to them you know they have a checklist in their heads. They have their sponsors and a rigid sense of what's gone before. They don't have a great enthusiasm for experimentation, for breaking the rules - and I've always been a rule breaker." Clive Barker - Lord of the Breed By Philip Nutman, Fangoria, No 91, April 1990 {Note : interview took place in June 1989} Mick Garris : "All of [the spirits] have to go back to their rightful place or all Hell will literally break loose on Earth. You have a hundred potential episodes with a great deal of diversity. It's such a strong idea I'm surprised no-one has picked up the option." The Sleeper Awakes By Philip Nutman, Fear, No 17, May 1990 The Books Of Blood ...No idea how many of the Books of Blood were planned for adaptation at HBO back in the 1980's but negotiations clearly went nowhere... "I'm now doing some stuff, doing some TV for ABC and probably we're going to do the Books of Blood for HBO as well. The problem with network television, the thing you're faced with all the time - [with] horror on network TV - is that it has to be so mild and my horror fiction is not mild, so we're always dealing with the problem of, again, censorship, I'm afraid." The Larry King Show By Larry King, 11 October 1988 "There's still the Home Box Office Books of Blood series too..." In The Heat Of Nightbreed Set visit by Alan Jones, Starburst, No 133, September 1989 Hoop Hell, Silo, Retribution and Other Fox Projects ...Fox originally had this series of six TV movies gathered under the banner 'Clive Barker's Spirits and Shadows' as part of a wide-ranging development deal covering TV series, movies and childrens' programming. One of the planned stories was Saint Sinner, lately resurrected by the Sci-Fi Channel. Although it appears that Hoop Hell and Retribution may have been shelved, the chances of of Silo (scripted by Fred Vicarel from Barker's original storyline) actually becoming a reality, did look good. We've even heard that it was finished, was about a creature composed of worms and flies, and was scheduled to have aired before the end of 1999... Well, we missed it if it did... "They're open to a whole range of offbeat ideas and I think it will be a good marriage. " Barker Banks 20th TV Pact By [ ], Daily Variety, 24 February 1997 "My company, which is called Seraphim, is presently developing a whole host of projects for Fox. They are under lock and key at the moment, so I can't share their subject matter with you - but they will be rather dark. " AOL Appearance Transcript of on-line appearance, 18 August 1997 "There are long periods when you think nothing is happening and then they want something by next week. We just took in a whole series of proposals to them. All of them have been put into development, which is great. We probably have more stuff in development than another company presently working for Fox. It's a little like juggling. You know those guys spin those plates on sticks? It's almost like Anna, Robb, Joe and myself are running from one stick to the next. I'm learning more and more to delegate from this abundance of work. There's so many parts to these development processes. I can't be there all the time for all this stuff. In this last time of writing this book, it's almost impossible for me to step away from the desk. I have wonderful people working for me and that definitely helps." Confessions By [Stephen Dressler and Cheryl Bentzen], Lost Souls, Issue 9, November 1997 "One of our movies of the week is now warming up for production, which is great. The first will be "Silo". Spelling films, with whom we had struck our deal, went bust about three or four weeks after we had done the deal. That meant we had our deal with a company that no longer existed. (Laughs). We had then to look around for a home for our movies, which is what we've been doing. But that was very troubling." Confessions By [Stephen Dressler and Cheryl Bentzen], Lost Souls, Issue 10, June 1998 "Silo will go before the cameras later this year [1998]...I am instructed by Fox to keep it under wraps. It's a supernatural horror movie, a scary horror movie. What will be interesting will be to see how much we can slide by, because their only concern was that it might be too intense. But they seem to have got past that now. They want it for summer of next year, so they need to start shooting in the autumn. "For the Fox material, I wrote 25 page stories which are then turned [into scripts] by writers under our guidance over at Seraphim. So we're just getting this material along." Lord of New Illusions By W.C.Stroby, Fangoria, No 175, August 1998 "I had a deal over at Fox television for a while, and though nothing came of that deal in terms of actual programming, we had gotten to the point where they had said to [Seraphim], 'We'd like to be in the business of making movies-of-the-week again.' It turns out they made none of them for anyone. But what it did was cause me to create six stories for that venue. One of them was Saint Sinner, and it existed in this twenty-five page treatment. When we came to talk to the Sci-Fi Channel, it turned out that they really did want to make movies. I said, 'I've got this one that I think is really cool'. It found a life over there." Clive And Kicking By Mike Watt, The Dark Side, Issue 101, February/March 2003 Sandy Grushow (president, Twentieth Century Fox) : "Clive has proved himself one of the most talented and successful writers in any medium today, and we look forward to working with him on a wide range of projects." Barker Banks 20th TV Pact By [ ], Daily Variety, 24 February 1997 Shadow House ...Originally in development with Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope and planned for airing as a series on HBO, this project - a "gothic-thriller" - teamed Barker with Blade's David Goyer, himself a very busy man. Disappointingly, Shadow House has gone aground and Goyer's plans with Neil Gaiman are also foundering... "I'm producing an HBO series with Francis Ford Coppola and that's great... I mean beside the free wine... We got the free wine, yes, it's sitting next door... It's really good, but there's also a thrill value in all of this that I don't discount even as I edge toward 50. I can still be delighted that Francis Ford Coppola was sitting here at this table a week ago. That's just great! The fact he is sitting there in my house, talking about a project I co-created, talking about ' How do I do this?' I mean, this is Francis Ford Coppola, it's too wonderful." It's Only When He Talks About Hollywood That The Evil Comes Out By Paula Guran, The Spook, Issue 6, January 2002 David Goyer : "I have a pilot at HBO with Clive Barker. It's called Shadow House. Clive and I did it with Francis Ford Coppola. We're writing it right now. "We're trying to see if we can put the HBO spin on it, so it is genre, but what I like about the HBO shows is that they take things in a more intelligent direction. There aren't any special effects in it. It's scary and psychological." Goyer Goes To The Shadow House By Arnold T. Blumberg, Cinescape, 18 March 2002 David Goyer : "The HBO deal for Shadow House got scuttled. We couldn't work out an agreement and the project was shelved." Blade And Beyond By [ ], SFX, No. 95, September 2002 David Goyer : "I was going to do this drama with Coppola and Clive Barker. They approached me, they said, 'Do you want to do this show with Coppola and Clive Barker?' Yeah! I don't even care what the show is. So they said, 'Okay, well go up to Napa and you'll hang out with them for about a week or whatever' And I'm like, 'I don't care!' "Because I think there are three reasons why you do any project, and as long as you're clear as to which reason you're doing it for, you're fine. On the one hand, there's money. If you're doing something for money, that's fine, you're a hired gun. If you're doing something because you love the project, then it shouldn't be about the money, you should do it for nothing. And the third reason is, there's just somebody you want to work with that would be an interesting experience. And Clive and Francis are just super-interesting great guys. Clive Barker, what a lot of people don't know, is a hysterical person. He is truly funny. "The problem with that ultimately was... HBO couldn't come up with an economic model to pay everybody. Ultimately it wasn't worth everybody's time because they couldn't carve up enough of the pie. Looking back, we should've tried to figure something out... I would work with those guys again in a second." Guest Talk By David Goyer, Creative Screenwriting Magazine Screenwriting Expo, Los Angeles, 16 November 2002 The Inhuman Condition and Revelations "The guy behind Stephen King's 'It', who is now heading up the drama section of ABC, has commissioned teleplays for what would be a two hour Halloween package of 'The Inhuman Condition' and 'Revelations', which will be framed by me as a sort of host. I think it will be fun. Both stories can be put on TV - they're not really visceral stories. They can be put on TV without softening them overly much. We're working with a man called Bill Link, who is the man behind 'Columbo'. I think it will work. I'm really excited about that prospect." [The Dreaded News] By [Michael Brown], Dread, No. 6, 1992 "ABC is presently looking at teleplays of Revelations and The Inhuman Condition to be done as a double bill, to be shot some time this year. They are actually looking at drafts of them at the moment, so maybe it will actually happen. I never know with television." From The Thief Of Always To Where No Writer Has Gone Before By J.B.Macabre, World of Fandom, Spring 1993, Vol 2 No.18 Hellraiser ...Can you really see anything which might do justice to the original slotting into the schedule between The Simpsons and Friends? With the memory of Freddie's Nightmares, Poltergeist - The Legacy and countless others still far too fresh in our minds, we're with Clive on this one... Newly resurrected, this idea has come around again - see TV Still To Come... "At one time there was, unfortunately, talk of a Hellraiser TV series but, somehow I just can't imagine it as a prime time show. At that point I think I'd say, 'Hey guys, enough already'. Look, this stuff is supposed to scare people to death but scaring people with television material is practically impossible. That's the last resort for any monster who, quite frankly, should be ashamed to be seen on television." Lord Of Illusions - A Fable Of Death And Resurrection By Simon Bacal, Sci-Fi Entertainment, Vol 1 No 5, February 1995 Galilee ...Potentially the weirdest family saga to have ever hit our screens (depending how you view Dallas and Dynasty), but we understand the prospect of the network TV miniseries was last seen heading over the horizon in a small boat... "Galilee looks like it will be a mini-series. It's going to be great fun! A big romantic family saga." Chats From The Past Transcript of on-line Hollywood Spotlight appearance, 23 June 1998 Randy Myers : "Barker and NBC are in the early stages of transforming Galilee into a miniseries." Love, Barker Style By Randy Myers, (New York)? Times, 30 July 1998 [Stephen Dressler and Cheryl Bentzen] : "Seraphim is currently meeting with writers to develop the book as a series for networks." The World of Clive Barker By [Stephen Dressler and Cheryl Bentzen], Lost Souls, Vol 2, No 1, April 1999 Borsch Bat ...This was the Fox project for the children's market - with initial illustrations in a style similar to those for Thief... "In addition to the twenty-two million dollar animated feature based on the Thief of Always, I am working on doing a Saturday morning cartoon called 'Borsch Bat' for Fox television. My feeling is that we should start corrupting the children!" " From The Thief Of Always To Where No Writer has Gone Before By J.B.Macabre, World of Fandom, Spring 1993, Volume 2 No.18 Damnation Game Mini-Series ...Well, the April 2001 news that Phoenix pictures are looking to shoot The Damnation Game as a movie (see Films Still To Come...) means this proposed mini-series is unlikely ever to materialise. A dense novel to attempt to bring to the small screen, but just imagine Mamoulian and Co. in the hands of the man who brought us The Exorcist... "With 'The Damnation Game' we're about to sign [movie] contracts, we may even sign contracts to do a TV mini series. That remains a little bit up in the air." Chains Of Love By Mark Salisbury Fear, No 3, December 1988 "William Friedkin, the director of The Exorcist, wants to do The Damnation Game...as a mini-series." The Inquest Q & A By Rick Swan, InQuest, No 19, November 1996 "[William Friedkin] and I had lunch about four months ago just on the basis that we wanted to be in business.....I love what he does, he loves what I do. I said what about Damnation Game and he said 'I love that book, let's talk'. I think he'll be tremendous if we could pull it off because 'The Exorcist' remains one of the best horror movies of all time and I think many of his movies were under-rated. I'm a huge fan of 'To Live and Die in L.A.', which I think was absolutely a first rate picture. I would love to be in business with him." Confessions By [Stephen Dressler and Cheryl Bentzen], Lost Souls, Issue 5, October 1996 Ectokid TV Series ...Back in 1994 optimism still abounded for Ectokid - little were they to know that the Razorline imprint would implode before this Saturday morning cartoon could become a reality. Nevertheless, the planned resurrection of Ectokid as a TV movie (see TV Still To Come) shows that all is not yet lost for Ectokid... 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." From Doodles To Decamundi By Malcolm Smith, Hokum & Hex, Vol 1 No 6, February 1994 Marc McLaurin : "And so, this is the last issue in the first run of Ectokid. But not the end. '94 is the year for more. The future for our hero is a rosy one. The Ectokid Saturday morning cartoon is still in production, due for release in '95. An Ectokid line of toys is currently in production." Ectokid By Marc McLaurin, Ectokid, Vol 1 No 9, May 1994 Click here for TV Still To Come ...And Still To Come Index | Home page This page has been created for information and entertainment purposes only. All quotes remain the copyright of the original owners.