...At one stage, this play - originally written in 1980 - looked bound for the big
screen with Matt Wilder having scripted an adaptation (see Films That Got Away...).
However, after a lengthy period of silence, the Sci-Fi Channel stepped in in March 2004 with a deal for a six hour TV
mini-series scheduled for production later in 2004. Barker will executive produce from Peter Filardi's new adaptation...
See also news of our own project on the plays years, including the original incarnation
of History of the Devil...
"Well, Peter Filardi, who wrote - I guess people who come to Revelations will know him best for Flatliners, actually. And his
producing team came to me with a vision of wanting to do History Of The Devil as a six-hour mini-series - which I thought was a
really cool idea. They really had a passion for the material and a real take on it and I always thought there was a cool way to
expand that narrative and tell all these stories, all those little stories of the Devil's playing, fiddling in the workings of history in
some more expanded form, that audiences would enjoy. So that's what they're aiming to do. So we're hoping that will all move
forward. I think Peter right now is writing - I think it'll take him a long time to write six hours, so we probably won't see anything for
six to nine months...
"I think it's potentially an immensely rich narrative and it's a dream role for somebody. I mean, to play all those manifestations of
evil, all those kinds of evil in six hours, because the Devil gets to shape-change, in a way. I always said to Doug, 'Play the Devil as
Andy Warhol,' in the way that Andy (well, I only met him once but everybody says this about him) he seemed to be a blank slate in
a way - a tabula rasa - upon which anything could be scrawled and you can imagine anything about him could be true. And I said,
'Doug - try that,' and he did his own version which was incredibly successful; he did his own, English take on that - curiously,
wilfully bland. And then, of course, during the scenes, during the flashbacks, he could be many things: he could be an angry child
at the beginning; he could be a born aristocrat when he creates Jack Easter; there are all these various forms which he could take
through the individual stories. And, most chillingly, when he played the man accounting the numbers of dead in the Second World
War, in the Holocaust - he became some terrifying accountant, with a book, numbering the dead - I thought it was a brilliant
performance. It remains in my head, crystalline after all these years. What is it? 25 years? And I saw it a lot, I saw it a lot in a lot of
different stages but it really was a magnificent performance...
"I think the interesting thing about what Peter Filardi and his gang is doing - to bring this full circle - is that they are very much
thinking, 'How can we make this mind-blowing television?' And I think that's great."
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 a deal to do The History of the Devil as a six-hour miniseries. That’s a play of mine, in which the devil is taken to trial
for his sins against humankind, demanding that he be released to go back to heaven. It’s really about the history of evil, which is
an interesting subject."
Clive Barker’s Dark Plans
By Joe Nazzaro, www.fangoria.com, 2 December 2004
Peter Filardi : "Going from stage to film we're really going to be able to open it up and
dramatize it. It's really not so much a horror thing though as it is John Milton meets John Grisham."
Filardi Speaks Of It And The Devil
By Ryan Rotten, Creature Corner at www.creaturecorner.com, 18 May 2004
Peter Filardi : "Working with Clive Barker is an inspiration. The man writes all day and paints all night. His home is a
floor-to-ceiling explosion of fantastic canvases. When we need an idea at any given juncture of the adaptation process for
History Of The Devil, Clive has ten. He’s the closest I’ve come to the condition we recognize as ‘genius.’
“History Of The Devil is in the outline stage of the first draft for Sci Fi, the miniseries will be six hours long, and the outline alone is
fifty pages. Think John Milton meets John Grisham. Through courtroom testimony, our audience will be transported back in time
through a series of vignettes which illustrate and examine the devil’s role in man’s history. The prosecution argues that the devil has
had a disastrous effect on mankind. The defense counters that the devil is, and always has been, man’s greatest scapegoat. As you
can imagine, the devil will be a difficult being to pin down.
”We want an A-list actor for this role of a lifetime; a handsome, charming, malevolent shapeshifter.”
Scripter Peter Filardi Talks History Of The Devil
By [ ], Fangoria at www.fangoria.com, 20 May 2004
...Clive made one quick mention of this back in 2002 but then everything went quiet. We didn't really expect to hear
word of this again, but Fangoria are reporting from their June 2006 Weekend of Horrors that Peter Filardi has been
speaking about his adaptation of Coldheart Canyon for TNT...
"Whoopi Goldberg and I are discussing a mini-series based on Coldheart
Canyon for TV... I think [it would be perfect] and Whoopi is a huge
horror fan."
It's Only When He Talks About Hollywood That The Evil Comes Out
By Paula Guran, The Spook, Issue 6, January 2002
...Pretty vague, but here's an early indication that another short story might be bound
for the TV treatment...
"One of the seminal horror anthology series is in the process of being reincarnated at
Universal and NBC. Dish hears that producers Tom Thayer (former Universal TV prexy) and
Dave Phillips are working with Manny Coto ('The Outer Limits') to put together a two-hour
pilot of 'Night Gallery', with hopes of turning it into an hour-long series. They're
talking with Stephen King and Clive Barker, among others, to contribute stories for the
pilot, though the principals said no deals have been made.
"The King story they're after is 'The Boogeyman', which originated in his short story
collection 'Night Shift', and concerned a man who shares his paranoia about boogeymen
with a new therapist. 'Night Gallery' is best remembered for launching the directing
career of Steven Spielberg, and utilizing the narrating talents of Rod Serling."
Classic Horror, Reborn
By [Dish],
Variety, [July 1999]
...Seraphim Films look set to develop this TV series uncovering the
realities of urban legend for the Action Adventure Network and DirecTV.
Michael Hamilton Wright is working on the pilot script. We understand that the overarching
concept of Witness To Fear is that some tabloid TV producers who peddle fantastic
paranormal tales for the amusement of the masses discover that what they thought was
make-believe is in fact reality...
"[There's] a series called Witness to Fear for the Action Adventure
Network, which doesn't yet exist. It's a channel which Francis Coppola
is making a series for and Oliver Stone is making a series for. I
guess there are five [production] companies making series for them, and
we're luckily one of them. And that's great."
Lord of New Illusions
By W.C.Stroby,
Fangoria, No 175, August 1998
