Film Projects - Cooler...
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)
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
Zombies Vs. Gladiators
...Amazon announced that Clive was to rewrite the Zombies Vs Gladiators script as Amazon Studios develops the project for a mainstream audience. Based in ancient Rome, the Zombies vs. Gladiators story opens as a shaman who is about to die in the Colosseum casts a spell that unleashes the world's first zombies. It's up to a gladiator to stop the spread of the zombie horde and save Rome...Click here to read more on the genesis of this project at Amazon Studios.
"I'm excited by the opportunity to interweave two very rich narrative threads. One of them concerns itself with the reality of the decadence of Rome and its rise and fall. The other is a fantastical narrative element - the living dead. My brief to myself on this project is to give the audience not only zombies they have never seen before but also a Rome they have never seen before.
"Amazon Studios offered up the dream ticket with this project. In twenty-five years of working in this town, I've rarely had people listen to what I had to say as closely and as carefully as they did and then simply give me the freedom to go do it. Amazon Studios is an innovative creative concept. I am looking forward to providing my own perspective to make Zombies Vs. Gladiators a highly commercial and entertaining movie."
Press Release
By APA, 5 June 2012
"We can push push push. We can go, I think, to extremes of horror and extremes of spectacle and extremes of narrative intensity that people haven't been given in horror for a very long time. We're actually taking two groups of people that the viewers of those types of films will be very familiar with from other movies - gladiators, and zombies - and we're going to fling them at each other with lots of back story. And that's a great story to tell. In the end, why do you choose any story to tell? Because it excites you. Because it gets your pulse racing. Because it gets your palms clammy. That's why."
"Why Do You Choose Any Story To Tell? Because It Excites You"
By [ ], Hollywonk, Amazon Studios, 27 July 2012
Roy Price, director, Amazon Studios: "We are excited to see how Clive will add his unique narrative to capture the essence of this story and propel the project into something unique and original that could one day be enjoyed by all audiences."
Press Release
By APA, 5 June 2012
Ectosphere - The Movie
...The movie version of Ectokid ?? It may well be that the non-appearance 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 Clive'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,
"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
Age Of Desire
...Age of Desire appears to have dropped down the list a little, and whilst minds are concentrated on 2010'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, Clive 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 saw continuing progress on this, with DiBlasi working on last script amendments, but little news since then...
"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)
Son Of Celluloid
"Right now we are looking at doing something with Son of Celluloid, which appeared in volume three of Books of Blood. It is a surreal supernatural story set in a cinema - and I love the idea of people sitting in a movie theatre watching a movie which is about people sitting in a movie theatre watching a movie."
The Pig Chill
By [ ], SFX, No 191, February 2010
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
"I always feel like if you talk too much about things, they don't happen. The reason I don't want to say too much is that the [original] story is five pages long. What Chris has done is mostly Chris. All I can tell you is that the things he has created are superb. When you see it, you go, 'Oh yes, of course.' It's organic, it grows naturally out of what's on the page, but it's brilliant."
Clive Barker Updates Books of Blood Franchise
By Jeff Otto, 3 March 2009
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
Chris Monfette : "Down, Satan, there's a script that I'm really proud of, but it's a big, smart horror film in the vein [of] The Exorcist... So we're left in search of real money. Its Hollywood. Any can or won't happen. But the script has been VERY well recieved. "
Twitter Post
By Chris Monfette, 11 January 2011
Nightbreed 2 and 3
...Who knows where the rights to these currently rest. Could they continue without the corresponding books? Could they continue without Barker? Absolutely no sign of them as yet, although a recent rumour that Barker wrote a prequel in 1997, shipped the script around unsuccessfully for some time but that Artisan Entertainment had recently picked it up and had Barker onboard as exec producer swept around the world with astonishing speed. Sorry to say we've now seen these rumours nixed in print by Nicholas Vince, the Chatterer himself, who had just spoken to Barker...
[Re 3 picture deal between Barker / FilmFutures and Morgan Creek - the
first picture being Nightbreed] "Son of Celluloid is the second picture
we'll make together, and the third will hopefully be Nightbreed 2.
When Morgan Creek bought the film rights to Cabal they insisted on a
more commercial title. They thought it didn't mean anything and they
could be right. Who knows?
"Charles Haid, as Eigerman, gets killed at the end of the film
[Nightbreed] but not in the book. This doesn't mean I can't bring him
back, of course, as long as the movie does business! There will
definitely be more Cabal books, though I envisage trouble keeping the
book and film sequels separate. That's a worrying bridge to cross and
there is a danger it will all become too self-referential, which I
must avoid at all costs. I must look at the books as distinct from the
movies. I start writing Cabal II after Nightbreed wraps."
Clive Barker's Nightbreed
By Alan Jones, Cinefantastique, Vol 20 Nos 1 & 2 (double-issue), November 1989
"Midian is destroyed and the second movie does not happen minutes
later. It happens after the passage of some time. Nightbreed leaves a
lot of questions unanswered, a lot of long-term questions. The second
movie is not what will happen tomorrow.
"There are people out there in the world who have been waiting for
Ashberry. Just as there are people out there who have been waiting for
Boone. Secret orders who have been waiting for their own particular
Lucifer. Armies waiting to rise who want a leader, and Ashberry is
going to walk into their lives like I guess Hitler did; to stir up
some deep feeling."
A Hymn To The Monstrous: The Making Of Nightbreed
By Mark Salisbury and John Gilbert, Clive Barker's Nightbreed - The Making Of The Film, 1990
[Re. likelihood of sequel to 'Nightbreed'] "Yes, partially because the video company are very interested, but if it does well on video then there'll clearly be an audience for it...[as with Hellraiser III], as long as these movies are made for a modest budget there's no reason why they shouldn't continue, so yeah, I think there's a good chance there'll be a sequel. I'd be involved in it but I've just signed a two-picture deal with Universal so that'll keep me out of the running for a while." [a sci-fi film (Eden USA) & The Mummy re-make]
Flesh and Fury
By Mark Salisbury, Fear, No 22, October 1990
"The head of Morgan Creek is still interested in Nightbreed 2... It's extremely ironic. But the story of the Nightbreed can run and run. There's no reason why those creatures couldn't be back in one form or another."
Barker Bites Back
By Anthony Timpone, (i) Fangoria Horror Spectacular, No 1, 1990 (ii) Fangoria : Masters of the Dark
"For the first 'Nightbreed' picture, which is the first of the 'Cabal' pictures, we might do a little bit of shooting in Canada, but essentially we want to work with the same team that has done such extraordinary work here [on 'Hellbound']. In the 'Nightbreed' pictures, I will say I think there'll be more monsters per square inch of screen than probably ever seen before. I mean this is a major, major number of monsters. It may even be three movies eventually. As long as it's planned, I like the idea of a series. The only time it doesn't work, it seems to me, is when - as in the Nightmare on Elm Street pictures - there isn't planning. I would certainly like to direct the first 'Nightbreed' because I think it is a horror movie with a very new angle. And it has all these creatures in it, and it can be very imaginative and very fun to do. One of the things that Chris [Figg] and I are trying to do is reestablish that tradition in this country. Nobody else is doing it."
Chains of Love
By Mark Salisbury Fear, No 3, December 1988
Midnight Meat Train 2 and 3
...Treatments exist but what chance for these after the all-too-literal butchering of the first movie by Lionsgate..?"I have plots for two more [Midnight Meat Train] movies which would have extended the narrative and allowed the mythology to breathe a little bit, but I think the DVD will have to do really fucking well for that to happen."
Midnight Meat Train
By [ ], DVD And Blu-Ray Review, No 122, November 2008
"It frustrates me because we would have had a trilogy out of this. I set to work to develop, in note form from way back, the back story of the city fathers. The other movies were not just taking place in this city but in other parts of America. They were connecting up the story of underground activity which is America-wide. It would have climaxed with a meeting of all the stations, all of the lines. I had this massive plan in my head. The absence of a theatrical release was... not only were we losing the chance to exhibit the picture the way it should have been shown, but also we were killing the chance of getting a real horror trilogy that would be constructed picture by picture."
The Midnight Meat Train Trilogy
By Ryan Rotten, Shock Till You Drop, 13 February 2009
"There is a bigger mythology here. We're only seeing the tip of the iceberg. At one point I even contemplated the idea of doing an entire novel which [would] talk about the underworld, the underbelly of America. So there's always been that [feeling] that maybe this is one I could go back to. Most of the stories in the Books of Blood are self-contained. [It is] one with left a lot of mythological questions unanswered. Who were these creatures? What real part did they have in the building of New York or New Amsterdam? There were so many interesting questions which I thought could be prequel and sequel questions. That had always been in my head, even when I first wrote the original story."
Clive Barker on Midnight Meat Train Trilogy!
By Jeff Otto, Bloody Disgusting, 6 March 2009
Vipex
...aka Lord of Illusions II. Clive clearly has a long-standing relationship with his favourite detective - who can appear (and has) when required, in any number of storylines. Harry can provide that sense of first person involvement crucial to writer and reader alike and is already a well-known and trusted character - so if Vipex doesn't come off then expect to see Harry cropping up somewhere else instead. Interestingly, the bio of Barker in the UK Gods and Monsters DVD booklet (released in June 2000) described the project as "in the works" - the first we'd heard about it for almost two years. Whilst news in July 2001 of a Harry D'Amour TV series for MGM (see TV Still To Come...) signalled a shift to the small screen, it now looks like the movie option is back in favour..."Harry is the 'good guy' in the story. At least, he's perceived that way. So I'm hoping that, if we do manage a sequel to this picture, I'd get to bring Harry D'Amour back. He's the interesting character to me, he's the man with the haunted past. He's just had a bit of bad luck when it comes to meeting up with the occult. If we do make another movie with Harry, it may give us the chance to keep the material fresh. The ideal model for this is the television series Night Stalker, which I always loved. I'd like to think that we could do something similar with Harry. I think Bakula was tremendous playing the part of Harry. He's a very reassuring, accessible person which, curiously, frees me up to be a lot nastier. Because the movie has such an accessible figure at its heart, it frees me up to be far colder and nastier."
A Graveside Chat With Clive Barker
By Jim Moore, Deathrealm, Fall 1996 (note: interview took place in 1995)
"I definitely want to once again have the mingling of reality and wild, dark fantasy that marked the first one - it should be a major part of the second. I want to see if we could do that again. Harry comes back [not Nix] and I think it will be set in New York, but I'm just playing with that now. I'd like to have a completely fresh title and emphasise that it's the same character. That would be my ideal and we'd work from there."
The Conjuring of Lord of Illusions part 5 - The Last Interview
By Anthony C. Ferrante, Fangoria, No 146, September 1995 {Note: interview took place in early Spring 1995}
"I've been writing about
Harry as a character now for ten years and he's encountered a lot of
strange things in novels and short stories and so part of this [sequel
to Lord Of Illusions] is going and taking him on a fresh adventure.
One of the fun things about him as a character, I think, is being
funny, accessible, sexy, all those things and, I don't know if I've
said this before but horror movies and dark supernatural movies are
driven by their villains. When you think about a horror movie you
think about the villain: you think about Pinhead; you think about the
Candyman; you think about Freddy Kreuger; you think about Isuzu possessing
poor little Linda Blair. You don't think about good guys. What I've
had to do in this movie is make it so that you care about the good guy.
So, forget about Nix - he's gone, all those guys are gone, never to be
seen again. I don't want to have that thing of, 'Oh-oh, the monster's back...'
We've pulled out the stake and all of that stuff - it's time to take
the story somewhere fresh and hopefully the series can continue in some
way, maybe develop the idea of an emotional arc for Harry - which has
certainly occurred in the books - so that as we live with Harry, as it
were, from story to story we understand him better.
"One of the things that happens to him in Lord Of Illusions is he walks
off into a rather grim-looking future with Dorothea. What's happened
to Dorothea might indeed be an element in the next picture; not that
Dorothea will be, but you know, just to finish off that arc of the
story."
Leapcon 1996
Transcript of an appearance at Leapcon, the Quantum Leap convention, 18 February 1996
"There will be a sequel. We're shooting it for a video release, much like the Darkman sequels were made. I'm hoping that Bakula will return. He's making his mind up at the moment. If he decides not to do it, we'll recast the role. After all, we will soon have had four Batmen with George Clooney taking the lead, so changing the actor really shouldn't affect the series and I've always wanted to take Harry to television. He is a natural for a TV series, with shades of Kolchak, the night stalker."
Lord Of Illusion
By [ ], Home Cinema Choice, September 1996
Scott Bakula : "I would love to [play Harry again]. There is already talk of a sequel. We are all wonderfully optimistic. We can go a lot of places with the character."
The Big Leap
By Edward Gross, Cinescape, Vol 1, No 11, August 1995
"United Artists is talking about it, starring Scott Bakula. It is supposed to start shooting next year. It will have a television and video life. I don't know if Scott has committed yet, but I think he will. He's not had great luck as of late, but he's a very talented actor and I like working with him. He had a great time working on the movie. Craig [Scheffer - Nightbreed] had some problems. Scott, on the other hand, is solid. He's an old fashioned star, in the sense that he learns his lines and he comes on and does what he needs to do. I have nothing but respect for the man. So, we will see what happens with the sequel. If it works, the idea is to then do a Harry D'Amour television series."
Confessions
By [Stephen Dressler and Cheryl Bentzen], Lost Souls, Issue 6, January 1997
"[Vipex is] still in the works. It hasn't gone away, it has just taken
something of a back seat to a whole bunch of other things that have
been going on this year. I provided a story. The script - which is
very good - was written by David Campbell Wilson, who wrote this new
movie 'Supernova' which Walter Hill is directing. It's a really
first-rate script, but we just haven't focused a lot on the project.
"The material still fascinates me because Harry fascinates me. Lord of
Illusions has had a wonderful afterlife on video, laser and now DVD.
Harry was always intended to be a character we could revisit. And, of
course, he has a large place in the third book of The Art."
Lord of New Illusions
By W.C.Stroby, Fangoria, No 175, August 1998
"I would very much like to make another film with Harry D'Amour and those discussions have already taken place. We have a script, with the title Vipex, which in my opinion is rather good."
Confession
By Daniel Conrad and Benoit Domis, Mauvais Genres, France Culture, 12 January 1999 (Note - translated from the French.)
"I think we will see more movies about Harry D'Amour, and it will be as you anticipated, on DVD/VHS more likely than on the big screen. Unfortunately, the movie Lord of Illusions did only modestly well theatrically, and the powers that be did not think it deserved a theatrical sequel."
Horror In Books And Movies: Clive Barker
By [ ], USA Today Online Chat, The Nation Talks : Live, 31 October 2000 (Note - full text at usatoday.com)
"Well the idea is that we will take the D'Amour character and we will do more with him for television. And then eventually we decided this would be better as a movie. So I think we are trying to figure it as a movie right now. That is why I am using the word sequel... but that is something we are certainly contemplating right now.."
Confessions
By Craig Fohr, Lost Souls, 1 August 2003 (note - full text online at Lost Souls)
I Am Not Myself
...A small syndicated news column is reporting that Seraphim have optioned a book by Josh Kilmer-Purcell - I Am Not Myself - the true story of of a New York drag queen. An advertising executive by day, his alter ego, 'Aquadisiac', heads downtown by night.Apparently recommended by Clive, HarperCollins plan to publish I Am Not Myself in 2006...
[HarperCollins editor: 'I'm really not the drag-queen type, Clive.'] "Read this book, you'll be the type!"
Trailer Parks And Other Bare Facts
By Liz Smith, Newsday, 30 March 2005
Born
Move forward nearly a year and Fangoria report Daniel Simpson (below) talking about a Spring 2009 shoot, funds permitting...
Melissa Wegman (company president, CEO ClearVision Media Production Group : "We are delighted that Jennifer and Paul have committed to this project and look forward to beginning production later this summer in the U.K. Dan[iel Simpson] and Paul [Kaye] have written a unique script that will transform into an amazing feature film."
Born In The UK Mid-August - Press Release
By [ ], ClearVision Media Production Group, 8 June 2007
Press Release : "Born is a chilling exploration of a relationship between a couple who thought they had found the perfect place to start a family and pursue their professional dreams. Their idyllic community turns harrowing as they find themselves caught in a terrifying struggle between the past, present and the future."
Born In The UK Mid-August - Press Release
By [ ], ClearVision Media Production Group, 8 June 2007
Synopsis :
A young couple. A quaint English village.
A deadly secret.
This is the world of Born. Combining elements of The Sixth Sense, The Wicker Man, Rosemary's Baby, and Straw Dogs,
Born tells the story of a couple who thought they had found the perfect place to start a family and pursue their professional dreams,
only to find themselves caught in a terrifying supernatural plot.
Joe and Vanessa thought they had everything. They've settled in an idyllic English town that will be perfect for both raising their
unborn child and for Joe to build his dream claymation workshop. From the local hospitality to the rich red molding clay found in
the town quarry, it would seem they've settled in paradise.
But something isn't quite right.
The locals are almost too friendly, and while using the clay Joe begins to have eerie visions of a young girl's murder. Gradually, the
story being told in his animation foreshadows the fate of Joe and Vanessa, leading Born to a terrifying conclusion that will shock
audiences, leaving them breathless."
Born - Synopsis
By [ ], ClearVision Media Production Group, June 2007
Daniel Simpson : "Clive Barker is executive producer on the film as well as doing a polish on the script. The film was put on hold for reasons I can't go into, but we hope to be filming next spring. "
'Born' Is Still On!
By Daniel Simpson, Message board post at IMDB, 11 October 2007
Daniel Simpson : "Born is ready to go, and we're awaiting news from HandMade Films as to whether they will fund it. It's set to shoot in New Zealand for budget reasons this spring, and casting will be pending on this decision. If Handmade passes, the option for the film will be available March 1, for anyone interested."
Things Get Nasty In The Spiderhole
By Michael Gingold, Fangoria.com, 21 January 2009
Candyman - The Remake
...A Candyman remake... maybe even with plans for a white actor in place of Tony Todd - whaaat?"I don't think I have anything to tell [on the Hellraiser remake]. I even heard - and this is as recent as three days ago - that the same thing is happening with Candyman..."
Interview With Clive Barker
By Rick Kleffel, 1 and 2 September 2008, The Agony Column (note - full audio online at www.bookotron.com/agony/)
Tony Todd: "When I first heard it... like everyone has said, it's ridiculous. The whole point is that he was a former slave and it's an interracial love story. But they own the property and they're entitled to do what they want...
"Some of my agents feel [the remake news] could be a move to see how much interest there is out there for it. Maybe we could put our heads together and do something modern...
"If they do it, I'm willing to do one more as a final payoff or good-bye. I wouldn't just phone it in, I'd want to commit to it...
"You can only go to the well so many times. I was never interested in a versus movie. [Another studio] actually suggested to me a Candyman vs. Leprechaun at one point - I'd kick him in his ass! Look, it's about profitability, most of these movies now are reinventions but there's no longevity. I could live forever with the thought of what we did with the first two Candyman films just fine."
Tony Todd On The Candyman Remake
By Ryan Rotten, ShockTillYouDrop.com, 10 September 2008 (note: full text online at www.shocktillyoudrop.com)
Tony Todd : "Maybe five years ago I would be worried about a Candyman remake, but I am just so busy now that I can't really worry about it anymore. Now, if I was invited to be a part of it, then I would be honored. If someone felt like they wanted to go in a different direction without my input, then that's okay, too, but I think I'd really be able to tap into the energy of what that character was more than anyone else."
Tony Todd Talks Dark Christmas, Hatchet 2, and Candyman IV
By Heather Wixson, Dread Central 18 December 2009 (note: full text online at www.dreadcentral.com)
Candyman IV
...not that we're supposed to call it 'IV'. Tony Todd broke word of the latest 'standalone' Candyman project in 2004 with the promise of Barker's involvement, if only as 'story consultant and an executive producer'. Indeed, Clive may well need to be on board to dispel the ghosts of Candyman: Day Of The Dead and breathe new life into the struggling franchise, and so far Tony Todd is the only person we've ever heard talking about it...Tony Todd :
"Right now we're prepping a fourth Candyman film. It's going to be big-budget - we're looking at $25 million. There have been a lot
of successful horror films made since we did the last movie, and Clive and I have had three or four meetings about the film, talking
about storyboarding ideas.
"It's going to be set in New England, and the initial image will be of Candyman in a blizzard. The story is about a double identity. I
can tell you that it's set at an all-girls college where there is a descendant of Candyman - a professor who doesn't actually know
who or what Candyman is."
Tony Todd Talks Candyman 4 and Final Destination 3
By Calum Waddell , Fangoria.com, 9 March 2004 (note - full text online at www.fangoria.com)
Tony Todd : "I'm reaching out to Clive Barker for another trip to the well. With the advent of popularity in Horror currently, I think the time is right for the definitive version. I certainly want a crack before a current rapper gets a crack at inheriting the mantle."
Interview: Tony Todd
By Clint Morris, Moviehole, [3] November 2003 (note - full text online at www.moviehole.net)
Tony Todd : "There are rumors about another Candyman; it's a 'vs.' film. I don't know if it's going to be Chucky or who!"
Tony Todd Talks Candyman 4 And More!
By Sean Decker and Jack Ulrich, Fangoria.com, 8 June 2005 (note - full text online at www.fangoria.com)
Tony Todd : "This is the third time I've worked with Deon [Taylor], and I definitely think he's an up and coming talent in the horror industry. We've been talking recently about some of our ideas, including wanting to revive the Candyman franchise and keep the legend moving forward...
"Deon and I have some tricks up our sleeves, too, for Candyman so just sit tight for that because you never know what will happen..."
Tony Todd Talks Dark Christmas, Hatchet 2, and Candyman IV
By Heather Wixson, Dread Central 18 December 2009 (note: full text online at www.dreadcentral.com)
The Abarat Trilogy (with Disney)
...April 2000 saw the announcement of a deal with Disney for the film and ancillary rights to the as-yet-unfinished Abarat Series. Apparently the offer of "an island" at Disneyland was the clincher in choosing Disney over other suitors...
The first two books were to form the basis of the first of three planned Disney movies. Whilst discussions continued over the question of live action/CGI, so it became clear that the originally suggested release date of the first movie as 'sometime in 2004' was looking rather ambitious. But progress was certainly made on the project, with John Harrison (who directed the Dune mini-series for TV ahead of writing the Children of Dune mini-series) completing the screenplay for the first Abarat movie...
Clive's original deal also included a percentage of the standard Disney merchandising frenzy - we were all prepared for the burger chain freebies as well as the planned Disneyland ride. But if all this was intended to be Clive's way of bringing a darker twist to the 'Disneyfication' of the world he's often talked about, 2007 brought the news that Disney's option had lapsed, putting movie plans back into its creator's hands, but thought likely to be on hold until the completion of all five books...
With Book Three published and Book Four being written, however, 2012 brings fresh news on the project, with Clive quietly confident about new negotiations with an enthusiastic team (see current projects)...
"Since I first read C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, I've wanted to create a fantasy world of my own, filled with characters and creatures who originated in my waking dreams. A world I could describe in both oil paint and in words, which would be the setting for a series of epic adventures. Abarat is that world. My Oz, my Narnia, my Never-land. I believe we - that is, HarperCollins and myself - will be making books resembling nothing that has ever been produced before."
HarperCollins To Publish Children's Fantasy Series by Clive Barker
By [ ], www.writenews.com, 26 April 2000
"This is my Wizard of Oz, my Narnia, this is a world I love to lose myself in and where I'll spend most of the next nine years working on these films."
Disney Magics Up Girl Rival to Harry Potter
By John Harlow (Los Angeles), The Sunday Times, 21 May 2000
"Eventually, it came down to three or four people who really had the size. Not just the size of funds to buy it, but also the size of organization to really exploit all the possibilities that it offered... I wanted this at Disney because they have the mechanism to make it into something extraordinary. Also, they think visually, and here I was with a large number of paintings, a lot of design work already done."
Clive Barker Gives Disney A Nightmarishly Edgy Kid Flick Rep
By Kathleen Tracy, KidScreen Magazine, May 2001
"It's a quartet of novels I wrote for HarperCollins, and I painted 220
oil paintings, some of them huge, some of them 13 feet across to go
with these books as illustrations. I suppose the closest you could
come to it is the Narnia books. Disney decided they wanted to buy the
world for films, for the theme parks, for TV... In other words where
Disney are going to be, they want Abarat to be.
"It's completely the Holy Grail. It's all that I could have wanted and
it's a way for me to have the creativity that I want. Write the books,
paint the pictures, without being bothered by everyone. And it's
tremendous to think I'm going to walk down Disneyland's Main Street
into Abarat Land in maybe five years time. It sounds pretty cool!
"None of those [other projects] are going to be as important as Abarat.
I want to show that Disney's faith in me is justified. For three years,
Clive Barker is giving himself over to Abarat, and everything that is
associated with Abarat will be part of Barker's purview."
Lord Of Illusions
By [ ], SFX Magazine, Issue No.65, June 2000
[Peter Schneider's departure from Disney] "is regrettable - he was a good guy - but there's a lot of good guys there and we've had no bad experiences there so far, they've been really super, so I'm cautiously optimistic that it's all going to work out well."
Nips And Tucks, Tits And Fucks
By Phil & Sarah Stokes, 10 July 2001 (note - full text here)
"I've declined to do an art show this year because most of the
paintings are related to Abarat, and although the actual objects
belong to me, nevertheless, Disney is going to keep them in their
vaults until the movie comes out, just because I want to protect them.
Disney has an amazing vaulting system. Disney has been very protective
of their artwork over the years. They are going to protect them and
when the movie comes out I think I am going to exhibit the paintings
around the country and probably sell them at the same time. But my
first priority is not the sale but the exhibition of them. I want to
hold all the paintings together. I don't want to sell them off in bits
and pieces and then find that when we get the movie out there, and all
four Abarat books are delivered, and I want to have a huge exhibition,
that I can't recover all the paintings because they are in private
hands. I prefer to wait and get all the pictures out there at the same
time. And then it's going to be quite an exhibition. I don't know
quite where we are going to do it yet.
"One of the things is obviously we can't exhibit everything, but I
want to put up as many pictures as possible. And we are talking big
pictures. I mean the biggest of them is 13 feet by 9 feet. A lot of
them are 4 feet by 5 feet I mean they're big guys. I want to make sure
this is done properly. And the great thing about Disney is that they
are really enthusiastic about doing this properly. So I think this is
going to be a good marriage of minds."
Confessions
By [Craig Fohr], Lost Souls Newsletter, September / December 2000 (note - interview took place 25 August 2000)
"I shall write four novels, as I am contracted to do, which will
constitute the first arc - if this was Star Wars, it would be the first
three movies - and Disney will take from those four books the material
to make three movies. They may also take material to do TV, games,
what have you.
"What they've done is something they've never done before: they've
bought a world from the inside out. They came out and saw a house full
of paintings, and heard me talk about the world and the characters and
the philosophies, and they said, 'We want to exploit this material in
every medium we're in, from theater through parks, through toys,
whatever.' And that was my dream for this material. It's a wonderful
marriage."
The Dark Backward
By Philip Nutman, Fangoria, No 200, March 2001
"The Disney vision is very particular and they're going to take this and run with it and I don't know if even they know where that race is going to end. I know that they want to take the first two books as the subject of the first movie and I think that makes sense because there are certain narrative arcs which actually complete themselves within the first two books so there's a sense of some narrative satisfaction to be had - you know, a couple of minor villains die. You got to have a sense of 'Hey, we've got rid of a few of these guys, got to throw some of these guys to the lions'. So I think they're right to take the first two books, because I want this movie to be - you know what Peter Jackson did with the Lord Of The Rings, if it could be that, or even a part of that, then that would be fantastic..."
Open Roads... What Price Wonderland?
By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 3 April 2002 (note - full text here)
"Yeah [the films will be G-rated]. Not even PG. Well, there - I said
that. But the rules are changing almost daily. We have a new president.
We have all kinds of new attitudes in play. I don't know. Would I be
able to release Hellraiser as an R-rated movie now? I don't think so.
I think we'd probably have to cut it. We have to watch...
"Absolutely [I can envision Abarat games]. And so can Disney. It may
even be that the first thing we do are games. We talked about that."
Barker Worse Than His Bite?
By [ ], www.pcgameplay.co.uk, 19-23 February 2001
"I said [to Disney], 'In one sense, of course, I'm incredibly possessive, but in another sense, I'm writing the books and there they are and nobody can take the books away from me. So if you guys want to make the books blue rather than red and you want to tell a different kind of story set in my world, I don't have a problem with that. And rightly that's an enrichment of the world. Anything that anybody does is an enrichment of the world... Does it bother me? No, go to it.' "
Imagining New Worlds
By Robert Starner, Lambda Book Report, Vol.10, Issue 3, 1 October 2001
"I always have in the back of my mind if somebody was wanting to make a movie of this I want to make sure that the information is somewhere in either the text or the illustrations that helps bring this thing to life. But having made movies myself, I certainly didn't come to Abarat thinking, 'Gee, I want to make this movie.' In actual fact, part of me feels as though it's wonderful that Disney is taking on the challenge of making these movies because it frees me to do what I really want to do, which is to continue to write Abarat books."
New Children's Book From Author of 'Hellraiser', 'Pinhead'
By Seamus O'Regan, transcript from Canada AM, 26 December 2002
"Showing those pictures [to Disney] at the time was one of the greatest
experiences of my life. What was wonderful was having these folks come
into my house and look at the work. And when they came in through the
door, instantly they got it. Harry Weinstein was extraordinarily
articulate and wonderful. Mr Katzenberg was remarkable. He sat on the
floor with his legs crossed and said, 'Tell me the story.'
"It was really quite an exciting time in my life. I was showing myself
as I really am, not the horror meister they had often invited into
their ranks, but somebody who dreamt with his eyes open. I think they
liked seeing that part of me, and I liked them seeing it."
Abarat
For HarperCollins (US), The Books Of Abarat.com, Fall 2002.
"Ben [Smith] said, 'There is a world here, and people are looking for
worlds; they're looking for places to play. Why don't we talk to the
studios the way you've just talked to me? Keep this very simple, bring
the folks up to the house where all the paintings are, and let's just
do this in a very 'unpitchlike' way.'... It was a fun thing to do; it
was very organic - me just telling the tale...
"I'll be as involved [in Disney's projects] as they want me to be. My
feeling has always been that my first job is to write and paint these
books and to create as many cool characters and fun concepts and
strange geographies [as I can], so that when other talents in other
areas come and look at these worlds, they've got lots to play with. If
I'm invited to help in the developmental processes, I'm absolutely
there to do that - but I don't want to be proprietary about this. I'm
the first to say Abarat will have different lives in different forms,
whether it be television or movies or whatever."
Clive Barker, Author
By Gina McIntyre, The Hollywood Reporter, 4 October 2002
"So, great response [to Abarat Volume 2]. Great response from Disney too, which is fun because then they are now going to go and pursue the movie. I think they seem very committed to taking what I've written seriously and really taking a crack at reflecting it in this movie. So I'm going to meet with them in about a month's time and we'll talk about that."
Confessions
By Craig Fohr, Lost Souls, 1 August 2003 (note - full text online at Lost Souls)
"That man [John Harrison] is writing Abarat, the screenplay, right now, for Disney. And one of the things that made me want to do
the deal with Disney was they said, 'We really are excited about it and, by the way, we have an island we could give you...' and I
said, 'You're on!' So we are going to create the theme park at some point - Babilonium - party on, man!...
"My hope, honestly, would be that it'll be a mingling of the best [of live action and CGI] - I think we're finding CGI can do more and more, I just don't want it
to be dominated by CGI"
Barnes and Noble Stage Presentation
By Brein Lopez, LA Festival of Books, 25 April 2004
"John Harrison - the last I heard, I should have the script in my hand the next week or so - so we'll see. I like John immensely and I
have great faith in his loyalty to my vision, because he did the Dune project and he's approached this scale of thinking before and I
think did immensely well with Frank Herbert's world and I have great hopes that he'll do the same with Abarat... He was a Disney
choice, but he was kind of offered up to me a little bit - like, 'What do you think about John Harrison?' and because of the Dune
experience, or Children of Dune, I was like, 'Yeah! Damn right - that's a great idea!'
"He spent several parts of days with me, going around the paintings, talking through not only what was on the walls but also what
I thought was going to happen to these characters as time went by - to cast my imagination forward from the two books that we do,
into whatever the third and the fourth might bring. And I can only do that in a very limited way because of the way I'm working - I
haven't painted those books yet! So I don't know that much, but there are some things I know and I was able to offer him some
insights. And I was certainly able to give him the feel for what excited me about this whole project in the first place - what had brought
me to islands and time and a time out of time and the Fantomaya and all the various elements that plugged into my experiences as a
child going to Tiree and Guernsey - two islands which featured hugely in my childhood imaginings.The whole idea of being able to
jump through time and then go to a place where time doesn't even exist is something that's very acute right now, being in a state of
jet lag! That's the way you feel! You're not plugged into the way the hours work and I made a note to myself two years ago, saying,
'Candy should feel something like jet lag,' and I think that when she gets to move through the islands at a really fast rate (as she'll be
required to do in the third and fourth books) that's got to affect her. I mean, jumping from hour to hour, you're getting very strong
feelings of what each hour will bring, but they're not in the right order! And it's that weird thing of when you have, for some reason,
disturbed sleep, or when you sleep in the middle of the day - you know, when you're really tired and you sleep for a couple of hours in
the middle of the day and you lose two hours, you know? This strange sense of being dislocated - I shared a lot of that stuff with John
and I think he was excited to have whatever I could give him. What Disney said to him, I do not know, I was not party to. Those
conversations were between John and Disney and John didn't choose to share them with me, and that's right and proper. He's a man
who's coming to this with three things in his head: who I am, who his employers are - Disney, and who he is as a writer with his own
imaginings and his own vision and his own version of what this is (probably I put those in reverse order - probably I should put him
first!). He's a very smart, sensitive man and I'm cautiously optimistic that we're going to have something exciting out of this."
In Anticipation Of The Deluge: A Moment At The River's Edge
By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 1 and 12 July 2004 (note - full text here)
"The screenwriter is a man called John Harrison, who I respect enormously and who has been very respectful of my desires where
the book is concerned and he tells me the script is loyal to the books and I'm delighted that's so.
"I don't want to get too close to the creative process. I still have two more Abarat books to write, though not two more to paint
because I'm half way through the paintings for book three. If I start to get involved in the film I'll be drawn back into the material from
books one and two when in fact, as a writer, I should be looking forward. My job is to finish the story I have begun in very a
spectacular fashion."
In A Terrifying World Of His Own
By Laura Davis, icliverpool.co.uk, September 2004 (note - full text online at www.icliverpool.co.uk)
"Abarat is being adapted by John Harrison for Disney, although we haven't decided on a director yet. What I did right from the beginning was say to Disney, 'Look, I'm creating these books, and there's a lot of my life and energy in it. Come to me if I can be useful, but otherwise I'll just be writing the books and painting.' So they haven't come to me, which I don't mind, because I like and trust John a great deal. There's a high likelihood that Abarat will get going at some point, simply because I think fantasy is where people's heads are right now."
Clive Barker's Dark Plans
By Joe Nazzaro, www.fangoria.com, 2 December 2004
"I'm sure that inevitably [Disney] are going to make changes. Turning the first two books into a movie is a huge deal, and so things will be lost and inevitably changed, so I don't want to get my knickers in a twist about stuff I can do nothing about. What I should be doing is concentrating on the stuff that I can do something about, which is the next book and the next painting!"
Entering Abarat
By Joe Nazzaro, Starburst, No 318, January 2005
"I've been around movies for a long time, and if I've learned anything, it's that a movie isn't made until it's made, so there
are no certainties.
"I think if we pull this off with live-action, it will be like nothing that anyone has ever done before, and that's a hugely
exciting prospect. The idea of putting Christopher Carrion on the screen - with his nightmares sinuously moving around his neck -
or having a conversation between John Mischief and his brothers... It's a very complicated piece of work, but on the other hand, if
it comes off, man, it could be amazing!
"The first movie will contain material primarily from Books One and Two, which makes sense, because there's a big arc in them,
which is taking a newly empowered Candy back to the town where she was a victim of her father's cruelty. So she goes back to
Chickentown and liberates the chickens, and then returns to Abarat, having freed herself of the shackles of Chickentown and
knowing who she really is. Candy is ready to take her place, although she has no idea what place it will be, or what the cost will
be, in the life and history of Abarat. So I believe the first two books will work very well as a single movie. Book Three, Absolute
Midnight, will be the second movie, and Book Four, which is the mega-book, will be the third film in the trilogy."
Days Of Magic
By Joe Nazzaro, Fantasy Worlds, No 5, February 2005
"Abarat, the script (what hopefully is the final script) will be turned in to Disney, though not to us, in a week's time...
"I have not seen a single word... I sort of am [deliberately avoiding it], actually. I feel as though, 'Let Disney do what they need to
do with it and then show it to me,' I think it's hard for people like John Harrison, who is a very, very smart and very respectful
man, respectful of the books and of me and I am equally respectful of him. I don't want to be another voice wittering in his ear.
I am perfectly sure that there are a dozen script advisers and note-takers and note-takers to the note-takers at Disney who are
already doing that. I prefer to wait until the script has found some kind of equilibrium and hopefully John is at a place where he
wants to show it to me and when he wants to show it to me, I will happily read it and we'll see, we'll see."
The Hellbound Art : Memory, Fantasy And Filigree
By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 10 February 2005 (note - full text here)
"John Harrison, who wrote the screenplay of 'Abarat' has just turned his screenplay over to Disney. I'm gonna be meeting with Disney in about three of four weeks time to show them the new paintings. I have a hundred of new Abarat paintings they last here in the house. So I want to show the staff of Disney the pictures and talk about how my ideas of the third and fourth book have developed by making these paintings. So we are moving slowly - it's a slow process with all these large movies because there's a lot of money involved. And obviously we have to get the screenplays completely right. But what has been nice for Disney is that they have been able to see 'Abarat' go back on to the bestseller list here in America twice - three times the last month."
Clive Barker On The Phone
By [Thomas Hemmerich], That's Clive!, 29 March 2005 (note - full text online at www.clivebarker.de)
"Abarat is at present with Disney - I don't know whether it will stay with Disney, honestly. Disney's in flux a little bit, you may have heard they have changes of mouse and so it's hard to predict. All I know is I'm writing the third book, painting the set of paintings for the third book - there are thirty-two languages now, including Chinese which is great and I feel like a market has opened up in people's heads (I don't even want to say market - a hole, a Jump hole - has opened in people's heads.) People want fantasy more than ever before and I don't think they necessarily want the old kind of fantasy, either."
Jump Tribe Panel
Panel appearance, San Diego Comic Con, 14 July 2005
"I don't know... whether we will end up making Abarat with Disney; there's a certain disconnect between Disney and myself. And I can't tell you anything more than that, though it would be terribly fun to do so!"
Appearance: Reading, Q&A
(i) Tattered Cover Bookshop, Denver, 20 October 2005, (ii) podcast available online at www.authorsontourlive.com as "Clive Barker Podcasts from Visions of Heaven and Hell")
"Abarat will be a movie but I am fighting very hard for them not to try making it too soon. We are no longer making Abarat with
Disney, that is now official, the work is back in my hands and my ownership, I owe them nothing. I suppose you could say
there were creative differences, I don't know. Certainly the way they wanted to do it was not the way I wanted to do it. I realised a
short while after getting into the deal with Disney and I'm glad it's come to this conclusion where we can make this movie. Though
I have to tell you, there was a man called John Harrison, who did Children of Dune for Sci-Fi channel and a bunch of other movies,
and who has just done a really smart version of the bookend tale from The Books of Blood; it's really very, very good. John has
done a very fine draft of Abarat which covers Books 1 and 2.
"In about six months I'll be writing the third book and I'll be writing the third and fourth books back-to-back; we'll really have this
narrative on a roll and these paintings are getting made. As you know there's a lot of paintings now, certainly enough now to start my
imagination going - and actually the painting part of it is the hardest part - so we have about 500 paintings that are part of that
mythology which could form part of the narrative element for Books 3, 4 and 5.
"My thing to the filmmakers is, 'Wait until I've written Book 5 and I've delivered everything and then make your movie.' The reason I say
that is because Candy doesn't age significantly - she ages maybe three years across the five books and if you're going to do this
properly then the actress can't age overmuch either and you've got to have all the books written and all the screenplays written
before you start."
Sowing The Seeds Of The Story Tree
By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 28 August and 4 September 2006 (note - full text here)
"I pulled it away from Disney because to be very honest I did that deal because I was working with two men who I liked
immensely and they swore to me they were not going anywhere and of course two months later they were gone. I watched as
the Disney organisation plodded its way through bouncing this thing back and forth not knowing what to do with it. Meanwhile I
turned in a second book, which only confused them even more.
"There just came a point where last September their time was up with the option and it was time for them to come up with a
number on the table to keep the material for a decent amount of time. Their lawyer came to us and said 'We're Disney, Clive's
very lucky to be with us and here is what we propose: rather than paying you x amount and keeping the material for another two
years we keep it for four years and pay you nothing'. And I said 'Go fuck yourself.'
"They made it so easy for me and it was lovely because I wanted so much to work with these two guys who I had done the deal
with and none whatsoever to work with Disney. That was when it was going off the rails and when Eisner started to back into the
archives of what I consider the treasure trove of the great American art that is the original Sleeping Beauty and the original
Fantasia. This is great art as far as I'm concerned and I will defend it against whoever else comes along! And it appalled me to
see them doing these straight to DVD sequels. They were just violating their own library and to me that was just desperate, just
pathetic and I just said 'bye bye'. And now I will wait until I've finished all the books or near enough finished all the books and we'll
see. As far as I'm concerned there is nowhere written that a book is not finished unless it's turned into a film."
Jericho / Hellraiser: Clive Barker Reveals All!
By Mister Disgusting, Bloody Disgusting.com, 7 November 2007
Michael Mendenhall (Disney): "I see them [the quartet] as being a combination of Harry Potter and a contemporary 'Wizard of Oz' but even richer in character and setting. Clive has created a mystical archipelago...
"[What drew Disney to the deal was] that the theatrical property could be developed with so many different creative executions: interactive games, TV animation, live-action TV, theme park rides, music, and reproduction of the art from the film. For us, this is a way to develop creative content that will be fresh for years to come. On this project, Clive clearly has a creative direction that's very in line with our studio."
Mouse Catches Barker
By Bill Higgins, Daily Variety, 17 April 2000
Jane Friedman (HarperCollins President and CEO): "We are thrilled to announce this exciting project with one of our most successful and respected house authors. HarperCollins has published Clive for more than 10 years, starting first in the UK. I am continually amazed by his vision and creativity, which he is once again sharing with a young audience. There is clearly quite a buzz about this project, we are certain that there will be a tremendous response from readers of all ages."
HarperCollins To Publish Children's Fantasy Series by Clive Barker
By [ ], www.writenews.com, 26 April 2000
Jane Johnson (HarperCollins): "I've been watching the paintings for Abarat evolve over the last four years, and they are just amazing: vivid, kaleidoscopic, breath-taking, funny, bizarre, inspiring. 'Abarat' - in all its various forms - as book, movie, interactive experience - will be both magical and visually stunning. We all need some magic in our lives; and the combination of Barker and HarperCollins and Disney is going to be just perfect for delivering that magic."
First Major Hollywood Deal Inspired By Oil Paintings
HarperCollins press release, April 2000
Joanna Cotler (Joanna Cotler / HarperCollins): "I have always felt that Clive has a unique vision. The Abarat Quartet will be one of his greatest achievements. It is brilliant, vivid and inspired: pure magic."
HarperCollins To Publish Children's Fantasy Series by Clive Barker
By [ ], www.writenews.com, 26 April 2000
Michael Mendenhall (Disney): "The reason [Abarat is some time
off] is that we may want to push our film-making technology. If it
were to be a combination of live-action and CGI, it's a minimum of
three or four years to come out with a really fantastic property.
"Not all of the people he's painted will be a part of the movie, or a
part of any other ancillary product that's created off of this. We will
not do anything to damage the Disney brand, ever.
"We were so thrilled to get this project, Spielberg and Katzenberg and
Fox and everybody were trying to get it. Everyone was pulling out all
the stops. But we didn't razzle-dazzle. We basically went back and
presented what our assets were, what our company would do and how we
would do it."
The Relaunch of Clive Barker
By Jeff Zaleski, Publishers Weekly, 24 September 2001
Thomas Schumacher (President, Disney animation): "I'm crazy for the possibilities. Did you see the guy whose seven brothers live on the antlers on his head? This thing's ripe."
Stroke Of Genius?
By Jeff Jensen, Entertainment Weekly, 3 October 2002
Thomas Schumacher (President, Disney animation): "I have a vision for what can be on the screen in the future that can't be on the screen today, things we have built at Disney that people don't know about yet and will be startling. It will be fun to do these characters, like the guy with the heads on his antlers, with puppetry and animatronics and computer animation and styles of paintings."
Where The Really Wild Things Are
By Dwight Garner, New York Times Magazine, 13 October 2002
John Harrison: "Both Dune and Abarat exist in the realm of the fantastical. Both have archetypal characters
and storylines that I respond to deeply, and both Frank Herbert and Clive Barker are undisputed masters at creating fully
realized, complete and integrated worlds. My job on Dune was not to change the world, but to find a way to realize it visually,
and to honor the source material as I adapted it to another medium. I learned so much from that, and I hope my success
with Dune has enabled me to do much the same with Abarat...
"Abarat will only be partially live-action. The characters are too fantastical to
realize without some accommodation to CGI. My expectation is that by the time this goes into production, there
will be technological advances allowing us to bring characters like John Mischief and Christopher Carrion to life in
all their Barker-esque glory, not dissimilar to the way Peter Jackson created Gollum."
Adapting Abarat
By Joe Nazzaro, Fantasy Worlds, No 5, February 2005
John Harrison: "I co-wrote a movie for Disney called Dinosaur several years ago, and they had bought Clive's four
Abarat books and called me to ask if I'd be interested in adapting them. I had known Clive from some previous encounters -
near-misses, things we didn't get to do together - and I was thrilled, because I've been to his house and I've seen his fantastic
Abarat paintings. It's phenomenal, because he actually painted the story before he wrote it - his house is filled with canvases,
some the size of a whole wall. So I said of course, I'd love to do that.
"We're taking the first two books and adapting them into one movie. The screenplay will go in in the next couple of weeks, and
we'll see what happens. I don't know what the publication schedule is for Clive's next two books in the series, but I hope
Disney will go forward quickly with the film. It's got incredible, fantastical characters and a really complex, dark story. He has
some wonderfully frightening characters in Abarat - these chimeras of all different shapes and sizes - and Christopher Carrion is
a truly scary bad guy.
"We're obviously trying to design the movie for a broad audience, but I'm hoping that the darker aspects won't get completely
removed. I have great faith in the whole grim-fairy-tale attitude about what these stories can be, and I believe that children can
handle darker stories than we give them credit for. I hope that the success of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, which didn't pull any
punches in terms of its horrific elements, and the last Harry Potter movie will encourage the studio not to sanitize Clive's material."
Screenwriter Talks Clive Barker's Abarat Movie
By Michael Gingold, Fangoria.com, 24 January 2005 (note - full text online at www.fangoria.com)
John Harrison: "I adapted his Abarat books for Disney, which are currently stuck in contract negotiations, so I don't know what's going
to happen with that... He was very happy with the adaptation of Abarat, and I was happy that he was happy...
"It's going to be ba hugely expensive movie and I don't know if Disney is ready to plop down the money at the moment. We took the first
Abarat books - there are four of them, or there will be four of them - and I took the first two and created the screenplay. It's wonderful.
It's magical, it's fun, it's got great characters. All the paintings of the great characters Clive imagined come to life in this."
John Harrison (Effects)
By Devin Faraci, Cinematic Happenings Under Development, 6 November 2005 (note: full text online at www.chud.com)
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, The Book of Blood and Dread now released, Pig Blood Blues may be next on the slate, with In The Hills, The Cities, The Madonna, Son of Celluloid and Down, Satan all being looked at for future productions...
"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
Jorge Saralegui : "We were looking for something to do between Dread and Pig Blood Blues. Our other projects that we have in development were not quite ready.
"The Madonna, among the stories that are left, is clearly a movie. It's evenly paced, it feels like a movie and it's easy to flesh out. What appealed to me about this is the sexuality. That's my favourite part of horror, probably - when you start screwing with sexual notions. I felt I had a real feel for the story and I knew I couldn't pull any punches. I pull no punches."
Producers Talk Barker's Madonna Adaptation
By [ ], Shock Till You Drop.com, 22 October 2008 (Note: full text online at www.shocktillyoudrop.com)
Joe Daley : "It's such an interesting story. The Madonna is this creature that lives in this abandoned bath house. The men that enter this cavern are slowly turned into women. You deal with such horrific fears these men share in the presence of the Madonna, in her lair, with these women that live in this place. It's a total taboo."
Producers Talk Barker's Madonna Adaptation
By [ ], Shock Till You Drop.com, 22 October 2008 (Note: full text online at www.shocktillyoudrop.com)
In The Hills, The Cities
...Anime might be just about the only way to realise In The Hills, The Cities without a ludicrous CGI budget... and after seeing the stylish delivery of Ryuhei Kitamura on Midnight Meat Train, this would be in very safe hands..."We also have, with Mr Kitamura who made Midnight Meat Train, a number of anime projects, one of which will be, hopefully, In The Hills, The Cities which was one of the stories from The Books of Blood which didn't, could not conceivably be made as a live-action movie. And it was Mr Kitamura who came to us and said, 'Hey, how about this as an anime?' and I thought that was a sensational idea. So I think that anime, certainly as far as the West is concerned, anime has not been even remotely used, exploited as a genuine source of horror filmmaking. Obviously in Japan it has been, though the tongue has often been close to the cheek in Japanese anime. I think there's a real case for making really, really dark, spectacular horror movies in anime form because many of the stories - In The Hills, The Cities would certainly be an example - but there's a story called The Skins Of The Fathers, for example, which is a sort of Lovecraftian story from The Books of Blood which again requires huge monsters; sort of Cthulhu-sized monsters, which is inconceiveable as a live-action movie but would be wonderful as an anime."
Interview
By Blake, Cinema Is Dope, Sitges, 16 October 2009
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, latest plans were 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/)
"The big problem with that one [Pig Blood Blues] has always been that the pig is a real character - it is possessed by the spirit of a dead boy. It relates to the boys in this borstal and they give themselves to it wholeheartedly. The pig is a very powerful entity in this story, so right now we are talking about getting this giant pig right. I don't want it to be like Razorback, which relied a lot on fast cuts and quick glimpses... Instead I want people to really relate to this creature."
The Pig Chill
By [ ], SFX, No 191, February 2010
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)
Christmas Horror Story II (The Yattering and Jack)
...Copperheart Entertainment has plans to adapt The Yattering and Jack as part of its sequel to the 2015 anthology feature, Christmas Horror Story...Steven Hoban (Copperheart Entertainment) : "There's a Clive Barker story, The Yattering and Jack, that we want to put in the sequel. There was no way to do our Santa story and Yattering and Jack in the first one; that would have been two really big pieces. But we do want to put it in the next one, and make it the centerpiece of the movie."
Christmas Horror Story Creator Talks Sequel, Clive Barker Projects, More Ginger Snaps?
By Michael Gingold, Fangoria, 6 October 2015 (note - full text online at www.fangoria.com)
Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament
...Raven Banner Entertainment have now taken an option on Jacqueline Ess and have plans to develop a script for a $3 million movie based on Clive's 1984 short story. Hopes are for an Autumn 2014 production in Ontario. Jovanka Vuckovic is set to direct from the adaptation she co-wrote with Christian Francis. Lena Headey will play Jacqueline...Jovanka Vuckovic : "I have a passion project that I've wanted to do as long as I can remember. It's based on a beautifully grotesque Clive Barker short story. I met with him many years ago when I was too inexperienced to be seriously considered to direct it. He knows how passionate I am about the story. If I could do anything, it would be that film. Some day maybe he will let me direct it. You hear me, Clive? Let's do it!"
Exclusive Interview with "Xx" Filmmaker Jovanka Vuckovic
By Eric Stanze, FearNet.com, 3 December 2013 (Note: full text online at www.fearnet.com)
Andrew Hunt (Partner, Raven Banner) : "All of us at Raven Banner have been huge fans of Clive's for years and I personally have always loved the story of Jacqueline Ess. It has all the qualities one wants in a modern horror film, so I'm excited to see it finally being brought to life on film."
Raven Banner Options Jacqueline Ess
By Jeremy Kay, Screen Daily.com, 29 January 2014 (Note: full text online at www.screendaily.com)
Mark Miller (Seraphim) : "We love what Raven Banner is doing for horror. We are excited to be collaborating with them."
Raven Banner Options Jacqueline Ess
By Jeremy Kay, Screen Daily.com, 29 January 2014 (Note: full text online at www.screendaily.com)
"Lena Headey is a marvelous performer with an incredible presence. As far as I'm concerned, there is no better choice of actress for the role of Jacqueline. Her beauty and authority will carry the day."
Game Of Thrones Actress To Star In Clive Barker's Horror Film Jacqueline Ess
By Dave McNary, Variety.com, 6 May 2014 (Note: full text online at www.variety.com)
Jovanka Vuckovic : "I have coveted Jacqueline Ess for many years. And for as many years, I have imagined Lena Headey in the role, so I am absolutely thrilled that she and I will be teaming up to bring Clive's phantasmagoric, feminist body horror story to life onscreen."
Jovanka Vuckovic To Direct Clive Barker's Jacqueline Ess: Lena Headey To Star
By Michele 'Izzy' Galgana, Twitchfilm.com, 6 May 2014 (Note: full text online at www.twitchfilm.com)
"Jovanka Vuckovic's vision for Jacqueline Ess is at once devastating and beautiful. Let there be no question: this is the film she was born to make."
Jovanka Vuckovic To Direct Clive Barker's Jacqueline Ess: Lena Headey To Star
By Michele 'Izzy' Galgana, Twitchfilm.com, 6 May 2014 (Note: full text online at www.twitchfilm.com)
Jovanka Vuckovic : "I have been chasing Jacqueline Ess for many years. In fact, it's the story that made me want to become a filmmaker. I even had a meeting at Clive's house years ago to convince them to let me adapt it, but it was clear to me that I needed practical experience in order to do it justice. It's not an easy story to tell. So I made the decision right there staring at the many fantastic paintings at Clive's house, that I would go away, leave my day job, learn how to make films and come back some day to make Jacqueline Ess for Clive.
All these years later, Jacqueline Ess came back to me. And I wasn't going to let her slip through my fingers again. I'm so grateful to Raven Banner and Clive for believing in me and my vision of the story. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, there really is nothing like it. There is some shit in this movie that will probably get all of our funerals picketed! It is my intention to make a film that is as much a gift to Clive as him choosing me to adapt it is a gift to me."
Women in Film: An interview with Jovanka Vuckovic, director of Jacqueline Ess
By Prerana Das, Toronto Film Scene.ca, 18 June 2014 (Note: full text online at thetfs.ca)
"I think the movie shows every sign of being really a class act and, you know, we have a female director, obviously a female star, a female protagonist and I'm excited, very excited. And I've always loved Jacqueline Ess; I've always wondered what kind of mind it would take not only in the director but also in the actor or actress, to actually pull that off. And I think, I know now that I have the answer to that question. And Lena [Headey], as you know, has sort of cornered the market in beautiful monsters, you know?...
"I talked to [Jovanka Vuckovic] last time I was in Toronto and she said how much she wanted to direct and one thing led to another - we were absolutely sympatico about using Lena, I wanted her as much as they did, so that was great, and, you know there's many a slip twixt cup and lip and I'm never confident that everything will go well but right now it feels very nice."
Beautiful Monsters
By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 30 May 2014 (note - full text here)
Christian Francis : "I am so excited to be involved in 'Jacqueline Ess', it's hard for me to talk about without sounding hyperbolic! But here goes... There is so much to be excited about with this project; Raven Banner have proven themselves as pioneering producers in genre films, bringing brave independent gems to the masses. With their involvement, they will ensure this will be something very special. Coupled with the addition of Jovanka Vuckovic at the helm, no one need worry that it will be anything short of an amazing adaptation of Clive's beautiful and horrific story. Her undeniable talent and extraordinary vision for the story will bleed through every frame of the film. Not to mention the recent development of Lena Heady being cast in the title role. The public's overwhelmingly positive reaction to this news is a testament to the fact that it is more than just good casting, but that Lena Heady IS Jacqueline Ess. And with a ferociously talented actress like Lena aboard, how could anyone not be giddy with excitement? (I tried to rein back sounding hyperbolic throughout this. I may have failed.)"
E-mail to Revelations
By Christian Francis, 27 June 2014
Jovanka Vuckovic : "Congrats to all of the writers, filmmakers and producers getting Harold Greenberg Fund support for their new projects, my own feature film included!"
Facebook Posts
By Jovanka Vuckovic, Facebook, 17 July 2015
Rawhead Rex - The Remake
...Is there no end to remake ideas floating around...?"There's even been talk about remaking a really wretched movie called Rawhead Rex which was based upon, again, one of the stories in the Books of Blood. A horrible movie. Now there's a point where I think, 'Yeah, that would be a great idea!' You know, it's actually a story which could make a damn good movie."
Interview With Clive Barker
By Rick Kleffel, 1 and 2 September 2008, The Agony Column (note - full audio online at www.bookotron.com/agony/)
Jericho Movie
...At one point we heard that Clive had plans to team up again with Ryuhei Kitamura to create a movie of 2007's Jericho, but with no comment from Clive just yet we'll just watch this space...The Great Unknown: Harry D'Amour's First Adventure
...The prequel to Lord of Illusions and a third D'Amour picture... Well, come on Clive - if George Lucas can do it...
"I delivered the first draft of the first film as part of the trilogy and pre-production starts the beginning of next year. It will be a long pre-production because we have a lot of models and monsters to create. I want to create a mythology so strong that if it works will sustain us through three pictures. In this case, it is really important to get it right in the first instance."
Clive Barker
By Michael Flores, It's Only A Movie, 1988
"I'm about to go to LA next week to finalize the details...
"I can't talk about the budget at the moment. Let's just say it's a big step up. We're going to need star names because of the budget, which I'm not too happy about; I'd rather cast unknowns, like George Lucas did with Star Wars. It's a big special effects picture, but not a horror picture. It's a deeply weird movie with a lot of monsters, but not a gorehound movie."
If You Knew Clive Like We Know Clive...
By Philip Nutman, Fangoria, No 78, October 1988
"'Harry D'Amour' is a very elaborate screenplay with lots of creatures
in it, which may now not be my next movie... 'Harry' is the largest
and the most extensive special
effects-wise [of the current planned projects]. It's
also the most expensive, because it's set in New York,
and obviously some work has to be done there.
"'Harry D'Amour' I guess we have to describe as a fantasy
rather than a horror movie... It's based on the character [in The Last
Illusion], but 'The Last Illusion' will essentially be a sequel.
Again it's a series of pictures rather than a single
picture. 'The Last Illusion' will probably be the
second of the pictures about Harry. The first one sets
up a whole series of events which will be dealt with
through the subsequent pictures... It's something much,
much weirder than [Harry at the Hess House]. Even by my
own standards the events in the first Harry d'Amour
screenplay are deeply weird. I was in LA a couple of
weeks ago taking the material round and there were
certain people who said, 'This is simply too weird',
and I thought I must be doing something right. I don't
think it'll be weirder [than 'Beetlejuice'], but it's
certainly up there. And I'm reassured by that because
so much Hollywood product of late has been so bland... It
gives me great satisfaction that the audience for that
kind of picture is out there. I think that the great
thing about low budget picture-making is that you've
got the freedom you wouldn't have if you were making a
massively expensive picture in which there were a lot
of creative forces. The great value of
modestly-budgeted pictures is the freedom to take the
imagination in quite radical directions, and we will
always use the freedom to its utmost."
Chains of Love
By Mark Salisbury Fear, No 3, December 1988
"That's my next movie, as a director. It's based less upon The Last Illusion and more upon Harry D'Amour, who is the lead character in that story; and what I've
done is a screenplay which is the first part of a projected trilogy about Harry D'Amour (which is written, and I'm just doing some refinements to) and in principle
we should get into pre-production probably the end of this year [1988]...
"[In August 1989] we'll go into pre-production for the next movie. The Last Illusion will probably constitute a hefty part of the second of the three Harry pictures,
but basically what we've got underway is the Harry D'Amour notion, that Harry is alive and well and living in the next picture."
Weaving Words With Clive Barker
By Leigh Blackmore, Terror Australis, Vol 1, No1, Autumn 1988
"Harry's always had a lot of creatures, but I probably won't do Harry until, at the earliest, the latter part of 1989. That's certainly on the agenda as well."
Running With The Monsters
By Gerald Houghton, Grim Humour, No 14, [Autumn] 1989
The Great and Secret Show
...Apart from the little aside below, nothing has ever been mentioned about this one..."Four projects are being developed by studios from my work [Weaveworld, In The Flesh, Lord of Illusions and Hellraiser III]. The Great and Secret Show has also been bought."
Barker Bites Back
By Anthony Timpone, (i) Fangoria Horror Spectacular, No 1, 1990 (ii) Fangoria : Masters of the Dark
Eden USA
...Alien visitors to the town of Lawson return the gift of Nature's delights, squandered by humankind, but bring also a touch of humanlike megalomania to sour the occasion. With touches reminiscent of the unravelling Weaveworld, this was to be Barker's pre-Sacrament treatise on the wonders of Nature, in its many varied forms..."The next film will be a science fiction movie called Eden USA which I've written and will direct, probably sometime early next year [1992]. I'll be doing a couple more drafts of the screenplay and hopefully we'll then just get on and do it. There certainly seems to be enthusiasm at Universal for it, which is good. It's fairly top secret at this point, but it's a science fiction/fantasy movie and it's Clive Barker weird."
Boundless Imajination
By WC Stroby, (i) Fangoria, No 109, January 1992 (ii) Horror Zone, No1, August 1992 {Note : interview took place in August 1991}
"My major bad habit is work. I've always got five projects going. Um... at the moment there's the books - Thief of Always and a novel, Everville - and the comics, and the screenplay for The Last Illusion, which is the one I'll direct next year - well, either that or Eden USA - then the executive producing..."
L A Gore
By Paul Mungo, GQ, December 1992
"It is called Eden USA. That's all that I can really say. They've [Universal] obliged me to keep silent. What can I say? I think it will be PG. It's a science fiction movie. I think it's going to be fun."
Dread Speaks with Clive Barker
By [Michael Brown], Dread, No 3, December 1991
"The next film project that I will do will be a science fiction film for Universal Studios called Eden USA...It's an original [new Barker story]. The third draft is being typed up by typist in L.A. this weekend [4th January, 1992] and I'll have it to the producers within a week. Hopefully that will be the next film project people see from me"
An Interview With Clive Barker
By Robert Errera, Hecate's Cauldron, Vol 1, Issue 3, 1992 (note - interview took place 4th January 1992)
"Universal, as you know, perhaps more than anyone else, has not had a great year. There was basically a falling off of confidence there - confidence I think in making these kinds of movies, fantastical movies. Getting them to commit to anything was just impossible. I am still not discounting the possibility that we will get the film going sometime this year, but I'm not holding my breath."
Clive Barker
By J.B.Macabre, World of Fandom, Spring 1993, Volume 2 No.18
Hellraiser: Helloween
...Well, we were a little sceptical when we first heard tell of this a few of years ago, but the rumours persisted... Helped, no doubt, by the then-recent franchise cross-over success of Freddy Vs Jason, September 2003 saw the launch of an "official" poll to determine fan interest in a match-up between Pinhead and Halloween's Michael Myers, building on Dave Parker's original pitch ideas and the 'Helloween' title.As the rumour mill swung into full action, new stories emerged almost daily, including that the match-up would not be restricted to the on screen action and that, behind the scenes, both Clive and John Carpenter were planning a return to their respective roots. Meanwhile, Dark Horizons hinted at a rush-job for Halloween 2004 on a Barker script...
Clive then confirmed the idea, but rights issues got in the way - and that online poll that said "no thanks" also seems to have played a part...
"I was invited to write the movie, but the people who own the Halloween movie rights didn't want to do it. John Carpenter was going to direct it. I thought it would have been a pretty cool idea."
Darkness And Light
By Mark Schaefer, Penny Blood, Issue 2, Spring 2005
Dave Parker : "I had pitched, unsuccessfully, Freddy vs Jason to a guy named Ross Hammer at Sean
Cunningham's company around '94 or early '95. After that didn't go well, I started think about what other franchises were at
other studios. It was a no-brainer to see that Dimension had both the Halloween and Hellraiser franchises, so I put together a
trailer using footage from the Halloween movies, including Halloween 6 which was just getting ready to come out, and the
Hellraiser movies 1 thru 4. I did new narration [for the trailer] and I called the idea Helloween - I know not the most ground breaking
idea and will probably induce many groans...
"[I] stayed true to the best elements of Halloween and returned Hellraiser back to the mythology that Clive Barker and Pete
Atkins established."
Michael, Meet Pinhead
By Ryan Rotten, Creature Corner, 20 August 2003
Dave Parker : "It explained certain things about Michael Myers and why he is what he is, and that led to opening the
doors for Pinhead to come in. My thing was, how come Michael Myers could never die? It's obviously taking some liberties
and I'm not saying this is the greatest idea ever or anything like that; I was just trying to come up with a plausible way to get
these two guys together to fight. So, why does he all of a sudden go out and kill his sister in Halloween? He's trick-or-treating in
a flashback and he goes up to this one house and at this time, I was really trying to tie it into everything that was put into the
Halloween films. So he goes into the house and sees the guy with the black boots, who gives him the box. He opens it and the
Lord of the Dead - Sam Hain - escapes from hell and takes over Michael's body because he doesn't want to be in hell. Now,
Sam Hain is who the Shape is, and that's why he can't be killed.
"So, the story takes place when people try to destroy the Myers house and they find the box hidden between the walls. Of
course, they open it and Pinhead shows up, and it's Halloween and it's the Myers house, so Michael shows up because there
are people there and Pinhead recognizes that Michael is Sam Hain because he can feel it - which begins this whole battle in
the real world. And of course, the third act takes them all to hell...
"I took footage from Hellraiser movies and Halloween movies and cut a trailer. Then I had a computer guy do a final piece, which
was the skull pumpkin from Halloween II moving in and then Pinhead's pins emerge out of it. That was my image to sell it with. I
showed this trailer to the guy who was then in charge of development at Dimension. He was like, 'That's really interesting stuff,
but we're not ready to do that sort of movie at this time.' So I was like, 'OK, at least I got to show it.'"
Dave Parker Talks Director's Cut And Hellraiser Vs Halloween
By [ ], Fangoria.com, 8 October 2003
Doug Bradley : "At this point in fact, Dimension Films are planning a Hellraiser/Halloween crossover. They are hoping to have it out by Halloween next year. That would be pretty fast, but that's their plan."
Pinhead Terrorizes Brownsville
By Kevin Garcia, The Brownsville Herald, 23 October 2003
Doug Bradley : "Well, such a movie was well and truly in the works last year. As soon as Freddy vs Jason stomped all over the box office on its opening weekend, Dimension wanted Pinhead vs Michael made yesterday. It was full speed ahead - the plan I believe was to have it in theatres - yes, theatres - for this Halloween [2004]. With Clive Barker slated to write it and John Carpenter directing it, it looked like a fascinating, mouth-watering prospect. And then it stopped dead in its tracks - I believe because of opposition from one of the Akkads. As far as I know, that's where it stays. Fans at Horrorfind were showing me a recent USA Today which said Dimension were currently developing the movie - but that, or suggestions that it may be an animated film, is news to me. I honestly don't know what the state of play is right now. "
Hell Raiser Interview
By Mike Hodge, www.milenko500.com, 25 August 2004
Shock Cinema
...Originally a Seraphim project with Fox, it looks like this one stalled with Spelling..."We also have a movie called Shock Cinema, a modestly scaled horror movie. This was one of the Spelling pictures which we now have a couple of people interested in looking at. We have a slew of things going on."
Confessions
By [Stephen Dressler and Cheryl Bentzen], Lost Souls, Issue 10, June 1998
Baby Blue Love
...We'd be hard pressed to name anything that we've heard Barker talk about less than Baby Blue Love and it's not clear what creative involvement, if any, Clive had on this project.A screenplay by Rico Martinez, this seriously off-beat but engagingly weird tale concerned Johnny Burns, a teenager whose adrenaline glands pump out unnatural levels of 'speed' direct into his bloodstream. Transforming himself into a drag racing speed freak called Red Hot, he and a speed queen named Hot Pink engage on a series of set pieces that give the impression Martinez himself was on the same sort of adrenaline rush as Johnny.
Sadly, no takers for this one...
"I'm also involved in a couple of other projects; one called Baby Blue Love..."
A Graveside Chat With Clive Barker
By Jim Moore,
Deathrealm, Fall 1996 (note: interview took place in 1995)
Graveyard Shift
...Never discussed by Clive himself in any interview we've seen, but an exasperated Tom Savini suggests that, at one stage before Savini finally got to direct some episodes of Tales From The Darkside and the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead, Clive was involved with an unfilmed rewrite of Stephen King's Graveyard Shift screenplay...Tom Savini :
"Y'know, I'm in Hell. I'm in living Hell. My Hell is, 'OK, you want
to direct a film? Great. We'll get you very close eight, nine, ten
times. The last second, we'll pull it out from under you.' That's my
punishment. In a previous life, I'm in Hell. So I thoroughly believe
that, if it happens, I'm not in Hell.
"Y'know, OK, very, very close : Graveyard Shift is a prime example -
script written by Stephen King, rewritten by Clive Barker, George
Romero executive producing, me directing - what a great package! New
World had that. For a year we went around. We were so close, we were
signed, I had a contract - I still have a contract with them. Although
they've gone to TV now, mainly the thing is that, 'Fine, if you don't
do a feature, we'll get you to direct for TV, a TV Movie or something.'
Fine. Great. I don't care, but we were so close and then they dropped
it saying that, 'We don't feel we can develop a story about rats...
Well, there are rats in it, but it's not a story about rats. I swear
to God, two days later I look in the newspaper and 'New World presents -
Slugs.' Y'know - so what's the difference?"
Document of the Dead
Tom Savini interviewed for the George Romero documentary, Document of the Dead, [date].
Godzilla
...It's tricky to know how much of a serious proposition this was for Barker. TriStar were looking for writers following their 1992 deal for an American Godzilla and eventually chose Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott. Their Godzilla Vs Gryphon script struggled in development hell under director Jan DeBont for two years before finally failing just as cameras were set to roll...Steve Ryfle : "Rossio and Elliott seemed an odd choice for such a big assignment, especially in comparison to other higher-profile writers who were also considered. They included horror kingpin Clive Barker, who reportedly came up with story ideas that the studio considered 'too dark' and Predator screenwriters Jim Thomas and John Thomas."
Remade In America
By Steve Ryfle, Japan's Favorite Mon-Star, 1998
Son of Rawhead Rex
...Now surely we're kidding...aren't we?..."Oh I'd love to do that. I have a horrible feeling that the rights to Rawhead Rex film sequels probably still belong to the people who made the original movie...I think they have it in perpetuity, which is regrettable. Besides which, I think it would be very difficult to sell, to pitch, the sequel to a pretty bad movie."
Rawhead Rex - The Creator
By [ ], Dread, No 6, 1992
History of the Devil Movie
...At one stage, this looked like it would be the first of the pre-Books of Blood plays to come up for the big screen experience, but it now looks like it's heading for the small screen instead (see TV Still To Come...)"Yes we have considered a movie of the History of the Devil, but with theatrical productions of the play springing up across the country, I think I will leave the movie life of the piece for a little while."
AOL Appearance
Transcript of on-line appearance, 16 July 1996
"Well, we should get a script for that actually this week, yeah. There's a fellow who's doing a script of it. It's interesting, you'll like this: the play was just banned in my home country. There was a production of it that has been touring around and I guess they took it to some place and they said 'No, no! You can't do this. This is blasphemous.' And of course this was a play that was sold out in every other place it went to. It made the headlines. It's remarkable to me that we should be sitting here in 1998, and it's still possible for something you can write, can be deemed so troubling to people. Of course the people who did the show were delighted, they made so much money! It was the Christ and the Devil scene that did it. I think he says 'I fancy a death, something with horses.' and the Devil says 'No, too messy.'"
Explorer From The Far Reaches Of Experience
By Kim August, Pharr Out! 1998
"History of the Devil as a movie is being worked on right now. A
brilliant screenplay from the play has just been turned in by a man by
the name of Matt Wilder. He's a theater director, loved the play and
wanted to do it as a movie.
[re. casting the Devil] "My number one choice would be John Malkovich.
I love John. He's an extraordinary actor. This may surprise you a
little, but I would also go for someone like Samuel Jackson. He might
be an unconventional choice but he's brilliant, charismatic and would
be wonderful. There are almost as many Devils as there are choices.
Where I wouldn't go, though I thought the performance was marvellous and
enjoyed him immensely, would be Pacino (The Devil's Advocate). I did
enjoy the movie and I thought he was marvellous to watch. Pacino's
wonderful, but it's very on the nose. My Devil is far less on the
nose, less of a ranter. Can I throw something else in? The Devil doesn't
have to be male. Maybe it's time that we changed tactics here.
Traditionally he's always been male but it would be wonderful to cast
a woman who could play the part with great sexual ambiguity as it was
played in Chicago at the Next Theatre. I don't know who, in our present
cinematic landscape, that could pull that off. There probably aren't
many people but we shouldn't discount the possibility of really going
for such unconventional casting."
Confessions
By [Stephen Dessler and Cheryl Bentzen], Lost Souls, Issue 10, June 1998
"Clearly live theater is very immediate but necessarily limited visually. The film we have planned will be very ambitious visually and takes off in fresh directions."
The Dominion
Transcript of an on-line session at The Dominion, website of the Sci-Fi Channel, 8 March 1999
Matthew Wilder : "In the last year... I also wrote American Heretics, a pilot for HBO and executive producer Clive Barker that's a sort of alternative history of America [and] History Of The Devil for Clive's Seraphim Films, an adaptation of the play."
Alumni News
UCSD, 1999 (note - online at www-theatre.ucsd.edu/)
The Mummy
...aka The Egyptian Project, this is the story of the ancient Egyptian cult of Sythis discovered by an explorer which, through its influence over his baby son, attempts to impose its power on the Western world. This was to be no 'unstoppable Mummy chases hero through the desert' movie - more of a warning to those who have taken to sitting inside pyramids. Pyramidic symbols abound - with a building reminiscent of that decorated with the Lament Configuration in Hellraiser IV, where a tentacled monster with some slinky movements is thrown into the Barker melting-pot with a bisexual baddy. Lately resurrected as a straight remake (without Barker involvement and after drafts by a cast of thousands including Mick Garris and George Romero - but with Gods and Monsters' Brendan Fraser), Universal have their 1932 version of The Mummy finally updated as a "non-horror" film - and as the studio's third biggest US opening ever...Rick tries to get up when Katherine appears, bare-breasted, but
he's literally mummified from the neck down.
Katherine puts her lips agaiinst Marietta's breast-bone. Marietta
shudders, and sweats.
'I am the first earth child of Sythis..' she says.
The thread-thin tentacles appear from around her lower belly, and
caress Katherine's face as she falls to her knees in front of Marietta.
Rick starts to yell in horror, and we stay on his face as the shadows
of Katherine and Marietta's mating play over his features.
'We will spread now like a new nation...' Marietta says. '... the end
of the human species has begun...'
Pape steps into view, and starts to bandage up Rick's face, stuffing
his mouth with dirt first. Our hero has become the Mummy.
Treatment - Clive Barker's The Mummy by Clive Barker, 1990
"We have a screenplay being written for Weaveworld at the moment, a screenplay being written for The Last Illusion which is one of the first stories of the Books of Blood. We have Hellraiser Ill in preparation to shoot at the end of this year. I'm remaking The Mummy for Universal, but I'm remaking it in a way that will be as far from The Mummy with Karloff, as David Cronenberg's version of The Fly was. Quite a way, in other words. That will be fun, and we also have a science fiction movie [Eden USA], so we have lots going on. These are all projects which I'm overseeing in some capacity. But the only ones that I will direct in the near future will be the Universal pictures."
Inside The Mind Of Clive Barker
By Ed Karlin, Vidpix, Vol 3 No 2, August 1990
"All we're taking is the title, it will not resemble at all any mummy movie you've ever seen before. Mummys are not terribly interesting, but the idea of a mummy, something that's ancient and belongs to a civilisation and a culture that still remains largely mysterious to us, is. It will be a deeply perverse and dark movie. If anybody thought I'd given up my extreme pathological and psychotic moviemaking after 'Hellraiser', they had better think again. I'm going to the limits of the MPAA."
Flesh and Fury
By Mark Salisbury, Fear, No 22, October 1990
"It's not a remake of 'The Mummy', that's the first thing. It's a movie that only vaguely resembles 'The Mummy' in the sense that it's got Egyptian imagery in it... We're calling it 'The Egyptian Project', which is very far from being a mummy movie, and it will get made hopefully sometime next year."
Clive Barker Interview
By Jon Gregory, Hellraiser, No 1, Winter 1990
"It's not a remake, but what I prefer to call a reconfiguration of the 1932 Universal version of The Mummy. Mick Garris and I have just completed a first draft screenplay of it... The grue element is regretably more in the hands of the MPAA than myself. We'll have to see what we can get away with. But I'm really pleased to get the chance to do a Mummy movie. I think that the menace of the Mummy was never really exploited. The thing that always drew me to the Mummy idea was not so much the guy in bandages wandering around, though that has got its entertainment value. It's the idea of this incredibly ancient culture with its pantheon of gods and goddesses who are utterly strange to our present day vision being loosed on the world."
Clive Barker's Letter From America
By Allan Bryce, The Dark Side, No 10, July 1991
"If all goes to plan we'll be shooting late this summer [1991]. It doesn't relate to any previous Mummy movie. All we're taking is the title and the idea that something ancient, which belongs to a religious system which remains to a large extent a mystery to us in the Christian world, is unleashed. It's a scary idea. Nightbreed was a deliberate intermingling of fantasy and horror; The Mummy will be undiluted horror. I'm already praying to the gods that the ground under the building where the MPAA has its offices will open up and swallow them before I show them this movie. They're not going to like it one bit."
Hall of Fame
By Philip Nutman, Fangoria, No 100, March 1991
"The Mummy is going into another draft [August 1991] because Mick Garris, who was writing it with me, is making Sleepwalkers. So we're checking on other writers to come in on The Mummy."
Boundless Imajination
By WC Stroby, (i) Fangoria, No 109, January 1992 (ii) Horror Zone, No1, August 1992 {Note : interview took place in August 1991}
"The problem with 'The Mummy' is that you have to reinvent it, just as Cronenberg reinvented 'The Fly'. It doesn't pay just to re-make it, and we found some neat solutions, but they may be a little radical."
Barker Looks Back
By Anthony C Ferrante, Bloody Best of Fangoria, No 12, September 1993
"Eventually I'll be doing The Mummy. It's in its second draft right now with Mick Garris. But Mick took time off from The Mummy to direct 'Sleepwalkers'. The Mummy has kind of taken a back seat for a while since Mick has been directing 'Sleepwalkers' but we're still going to 'resurrect' that project."
An Interview With Clive Barker
By Robert Errera, Hecate's Cauldron, Vol 1, Issue 3, 1992 (note - interview took place 4th January 1992)
"Mick Garris and I did a script, but it was a little too weird for Universal. One of the problems is that, unlike vampires or the Frankenstein monster, the mummy is one of the least likely characters to scare you. So our version only used the mummy as the starting place for something else, which was very grim."
Hellraiser
By Jay Stevenson, (i) Imagi-Movies, Vol 1, No 2, Winter 1993/94 (ii) By Joe Fordham, Cinefantastique, Vol.31 No 6, June 1999
"Looking back, our version of The Mummy was precisely what the Powers-That-Were at Universal did not want. It made the
Mummy story over for the late twentieth century, not in terms of its effects (this was before CGI brought its dubious gifts to the
process of horror film-making) but in terms of content. We had one particular narrative hook that we were very proud of. In the first
scene a strange boy-child is born, under circumstances (high howling winds and a ferocious thunderstorm) that suggest
something unnatural is afoot. The narrative then jumps twenty years or so, and we pick up the story of how sacred Egyptian
artifacts are being brought to America for an exhibition that would put the Tutankhamen exhibit to shame. An uncommonly beautiful
woman is threaded into the action, a seducer and a murderer of mysterious origin. Of the boy-child (now presumably grown to
adulthood) we get no sight. Meanwhile our anti-heroine is seducing her way through the male members of the cast, only to be
revealed in the Third Act, as the boy-child, now turned (thanks to surgery and hormones) into a woman.
"We loved the idea. So much so that we put the mystery surrounding this ambiguous creature and her extraordinary secret at the
heart of our story. Our creation was not welcomed at Universal, needless to say. The script, which Mick had laboured hard over
(working in a diminutive hotel room in London, which I visited daily for story conferences), was eviscerated by the script readers and
our producers. How could we expect to get away with something so weird? Nobody in America, we were told, would accept such a
ridiculous premise.
"A few years later Miramax made a huge hit out of a little movie called The Crying Game, which if you remember, had a girl who was a
few inches more than a girl, and got naked to prove it. I sent the receipts of The Crying Game over to the folks who'd rejected our
perverted (their word) version of the Mummy every week. I doubt they saw the irony.
"But there was great fun to be had back then simply tossing these ideas back and forth with Mick. His cinematic knowledge and recall
is truly impressive, so he was always able to warn me when we were treading on cliché, so we could avoid it. Of course it was
cliché they had wanted all along, and if we'd only had the good sense to deliver it we probably would have got the picture made."
Mick Garris: A Very Un-Hollywood Type
By Clive Barker, World Horror Convention Book, 7-10 April 2005
Peter Atkins :
"How about a Hellraiser movie set partly in Ancient Egypt in which it is revealed that the very first Cenobite was an overly-curious
Pharaoh? And how about the fun we could have had when his mummified remains are dug up in the 1990s and brought to an
American museum and some clown, in the process of making a diorama display of the discovered treasures, realigns the objects
found in the tomb into a certain pyramidic pattern. A pattern that predated the Lament Configuration as a means of access from this
reality to that other we all know and love? That was Clive's first take on an idea for the sequel.
"I liked it. Chris Figg liked it. But, despite it being his idea, Clive decided that he didn't like it. Or rather, he didn't like it as the basis for
a Hellraiser movie. My guess is he saw the potential for a whole new Barkerian mythology in there and wanted to keep it clean.
There was much talk in the genre press a couple of years later about something called The Egyptian Project, a working title for a
movie Clive was developing with Mick Garris for Universal Pictures. I never read Mick's screenplay so I don't know if it has anything in
common with those earlier ideas of Clive's but I'm sure you Barker-completists out there will be happy to learn about that particular
strand of potential cross-fertilisation between his works."
Building The Beast (In Stages) : The Long Making of Hell On Earth
By Peter Atkins, written in 1993 and presented here at Revelations as an exclusive presentation with our thanks to Pete.
Mick Garris : "The studio's been wanting to do another Mummy movie for years, but until Clive came up with this story, the idea wasn't going anywhere. This is a completely fresh take on The Mummy. It's not a guy rotting in bandages, this is contemporary, and it takes place in Beverly Hills."
Mummy Dearest
By [ ], Los Angeles Daily News, 9 March 1992
Mick Garris :
"It won't be the next movie Clive directs, Eden USA will be - in fact,
I may be directing The Mummy. It depends; Universal wants to see
Sleepwalkers first.
"The Mummy is probably one of the most shocking
horror scripts that's ever been developed by a major studio; it goes
far beyond what Sleepwalkers does in a horror/sexual manner.
It is contemporary, mostly set in Beverly Hills, and it has nothing to
do with any Mummy before this, or Anne Rice's book either. The Mummy
is [really grim and dark and sexy], but it's also a lot of fun and very
erotic - it has every kind of sexual coupling you can imagine, and a
few you can't, I hope."
Putting Sleepwalkers Through Their Paces
By Bill Warren, Fangoria, No 112, May 1992
Jim Jacks : "Our first attempt [at producing The Mummy] was with Clive Barker, with whom we'd developed a couple of screenplays. Clive did very much the 'Hellraiser Mummy' - contemporary, very dark, very weird sexually and horrific. Very original - you'd never seen anything like this before."
The Curse Of The Lost Mummies
By Bill Warren, Fangoria, No 183, June 1999
Mick Garris :
"The mummy itself is a suspended-animation creature from long ago and
far away, with alien protectors that come to life. It is housed in a
brand-new museum built in the heart of Beverly Hills. The grand
opening night ceremony is greeted with the meltdown, eruption and
release of these creatures from beyond our planet.
"There was a mummy that was actually wrapped about what was underneath
- a rather arachnid-like, intelligent creature. I thought at the time
that I could not imagine a major studio doing this kind of movie -
and I was right."
The Curse Of The Lost Mummies
By Bill Warren, Fangoria, No 183, June 1999
Mick Garris :
"Originally [1990/91], Universal was very high on making 'Clive Barker's The
Mummy', so Clive came up with a brief outline which he was going to
direct. I wrote a very bizarre and twisted script based on Clive's
very bizarre and twisted treatment; we both were really excited about
it. Most of the story took place in Beverly Hills, in the land of
tummy tucks and face lifts, but it was set in a museum with a large
Egyptology department. They brought an entire tomb and rebuilt it as
it was originally in Egypt, recreated entirely within this Beverly
Hills museum. It was almost like 'Chariots of the Mummies'; in other
words, the ancient Egyptians were inspired by and involved with alien
intelligences from thousands of years before.
"George [Romero's new 1994 ] version was close to going, so Alphaville
came to me to do a rewrite and direct. I did two or three drafts that
I was really excited about, and the studio had virtually green-lit...
What Clive and I had done was something entirely out of the
imagination. This next version really combined the Karloff and the
Lon Chaney, Jr. movies in that we had both Imhotep and Kharis. It was
a romance...I would love to have made it a period movie in that Art
Deco explosion of the 20's and 30's which was inspired by the King Tut
discoveries in 1922, but the budget would not allow that."
The Mummy : Development Hell
By Joe Fordham, Cinefantastique, Vol. 31 No 6, June 1999
Jim Jacks : "Clive wrote kind of a Hellraiser thing, with a lot of dismembering - very bloody. It was about this guy who was head of a contemporary art museum built in the form of a pyramid. And he turns out be some kind of a cultist who's trying to reanimate the mummies."
Stalk Like An Egyptian
By David Hughes, DreamWatch, No 59, Summer 1999
Jim Jacks : "Barker's version was very bloody and exotic, tied in with ancient religions. It was intended to be a low-budget franchise like Hellraiser. It never got off the ground."
Unwrapping The Mummy
By Michael Fleming, Movieline, May 1999
Todd Case : "The final lecture to take place [at the L.A. Weekend of Horrors convention, June 1994] was that of Clive Barker. This lecture would turn out to be the highlight of the weekend... Someone asked Clive, 'Whatever happened to The Mummy?' Clive responded by saying that the film contained a scene in which the sensuous female turned out to be a male. Clive felt that this would send true horror through men, due to the fact that the men watching the movie would also be fantasizing about the female, who was actually a man. The producers felt the audience wasn't ready for this kind of horror yet. Shortly after this, The Crying Game was released."
Tear Your Envelope Apart
Coenobium, Issue 12, Summer 1994
Mick Garris :
"I had two different lives on The Mummy, that didn't happen. Clive had written a story, an approach of The Mummy, and it took place in Beverly Hills of all places
- and then I wrote the screenplay, and he was originally set to direct it. Then they decided not to do it, and then they thought of me directing it, then they
decided not to do it. Years later, I came back and wrote an entirely different version of The Mummy, based on one that George Romero was going to do at
Universal. We were prepping and ready to go, and then the head of Universal was deposed and given a producing position there, and he decided he wanted to
do The Mummy, and then turned it into an $80 million movie - and I was out.
"We were going to make it as a $15 million horror movie - very erotic, very suspenseful and creepy. Well, it was very different from the Clive one - the Clive one
was also in that budget area."
An Interview With Mick Garris
By Ken P., IGN Filmforce, 13 January 2003 (note - available online at http://filmforce.ign.com)
Mick Garris :
"Sean Daniel used to be a vice-president of production at Universal and he did all of John Landis's movies and Jim Jacks was with
Circle Films which did Blood Simple and that was his entrée to the business - the two of them formed a production company
at Universal and they thought the title 'Clive Barker's The Mummy' was a sure thing - and I would have thought so too! And so
that was the first thing that Clive and I worked on together (although I also adapted his story In The Flesh as a feature for me
to direct at Warner Brothers, I wrote the script for that).
"So, Clive had this really outrageous idea about The Mummy and it took place in Beverly Hills and had to do with high society and
the arts and the museum world and the pretensions of all that, and a mummified secret chamber beneath Beverly Hills and it was
insane and extremely sexual and twisted - and this was at the time again I'd been writing, you know, *batteries not included and
Hocus Pocus and other family-friendly fare. This - it was only family-friendly if you were a member of the Manson family.
But it was a really fun time and I love Clive and working with Clive."
The Mummy
By Stephen Scarlata and Josh Miller, Best Movies Never Made, 27 August 2019 (note - available online at stitcher.com)
The Midnight Meat Train
...Although only five of the thirty Books of Blood have sprung to bloody life on celluloid, it's certainly not been for lack of enthusiasm. Bernard Rose optioned this one before it too went off the rails. Since then, however, Ryuhei Kitamura has directed a version of Midnight Meat Train adapted by Jeff Buhler and released in 2008..."Candyman 2 is presently being written by Bernard Rose. It is a marriage of certain elements from Candyman with certain elements of the story fans have always wanted to see turned into a movie, The Midnight Meat Train. Bernard is writing it and hopefully it will go before the cameras sometime this summer."
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
"An interesting thing happened with Candyman 2. Bernard [Rose] loves The Midnight Meat Train and he came to me and said 'I want to fold The Midnight Meat Train into Candyman 2' and I thought that could be made to work. He showed me a script which was a wonderful rendering of Midnight Meat Train but didn't have much Candyman in it. I said to him, 'Look, this isn't Candyman. Why force it to be Candyman II when it very clearly doesn't want to be that. Why not just let it be The Midnight Meat Train?' So he is going to make The Midnight Meat Train and we are going to make Candyman II. The Midnight Meat Train grew into a separate film which in fact is exactly right because it was always a separate idea. It momentarily connected with Candyman and then it split off again. I think Bernard did a great job with Candyman and I think he'll do a great job with Midnight Meat Train. I think his judgements are generally good and I am working with him as I did on Candyman so hopefully the new material he will bring to it will marry up well with my concerns. So we will make three movies this year: Hellraiser IV, Candyman II and The Midnight Meat Train...We already have one draft of Midnight Meat Train. Bernard has the notes and he is about to start the second draft."
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
By Michael Brown, Dread, No 11, September 1993
"For a while [Bernard Rose] was talking about doing a version of Midnight Meat Train, but then he decided to go and make a movie of Anna Karenina. From The Midnight Meat Train to Anna Karenina in one bound. He made a movie last year called Immortal Beloved which was about the secret mistress of Beethoven. I think it turned him onto the musical thing; it turned him onto musical classical things and the idea of doing something from another period and so on. So he ended up pursuing Anna Karenina. I don't know how far down the line that project is, but I know that's what he's doing right now."
Confessions
By [Stephen Dressler and Cheryl Bentzen], Lost Souls, Issue 4, [July] 1996
In The Flesh
...Another of the Books of Blood to have been smiled upon for quite some time before alternatives conspired to place it firmly on (in?) the back-burner. This one was due to be directed by Mick Garris for Warner Bros from his own adapted screenplay until it was first delayed by a Hollywood writers' strike then finally derailed as moods changed at the studio. At one stage, Gale Anne Hurd had been on board, reworking elements of the second draft, and a $10-12 million budget had been assigned..."As far as In The Flesh is concerned, Mick [Garris] is coming to London next week [June 1989] to continue working on the script. Mick is writing it. I simply have some input into how the story may or may not be turned into a movie. It's Mick's project, both as a writer and a director. As with Hellbound, I'll have my say, but if Mick wants to throw out those ideas it's his prerogative. You shouldn't try to bully people into doing things your way."
Clive Barker - Lord of the Breed
By Philip Nutman, Fangoria, No 91, April 1990 {Note : interview took place in June 1989}
"I'm talking to John Carpenter about doing In The Flesh."
Clive Barker Interview
By [ ], The Dark Side, No 1, October 1990
"In The Flesh is in its third draft at Warner Bros."
Barker Bites Back
By Anthony Timpone, (i) Fangoria Horror Spectacular, No 1, 1990 (ii) Fangoria : Masters of the Dark
Mick Garris : "We've added to the protagonist's story, the Cleveland Smith character. He now has a life and relationship outside the prison sequences - he was accidentally responsible for his wife's death - which is why he's incarcerated. Smith's also now a much more sympathetic character than he was when Clive wrote him. Billy Tait, the tale's diabolist, is now in search of his father's spirit rather than that of his grandfather, which brings the story much closer to home. Basically, the dream city is a more finite place for obvious reasons, but this is still one of the weirdest scripts I've written for a major studio."
The Sleeper Wakes
By Philip Nutman, Fear, No 17, May 1990
Mick Garris : "In The Flesh is really grim and dark and sexy."
Putting Sleepwalkers Through Their Paces
By Bill Warren, Fangoria, No 112, May 1992
Mick Garris : "We were going to do In the Flesh together as well, over at Warner Brothers. I had written the script for that, and that's something that every few years a possibility of it pops up again, but I don't know that that will ever happen. I assume it won't, if history is a key."
An Interview With Mick Garris
By Ken P., IGN Filmforce, 13 January 2003 (note - available online at http://filmforce.ign.com)
Son of Celluloid
...And yet another one...
"Certainly from our company [Film Futures] will come at least one movie based on the new novel Cabal, maybe two, and an adaptation of Son of Celluloid, which will be very outrageous."
Chains of Love
By Mark Salisbury Fear, No 3, December 1988
"As for adaptations of my previous work, Scott Gilmore turned over to us a really first-rate draft of a screenplay for Son Of Celluloid. It's great work."
Triple Threat
By Steve Niles, Greed, No 5, Second Quarter 1988
"[Son Of Celluloid] comes second. Cabal we start shooting on the 20th February [1989]... So that's very exciting, it's a long time since I went behind a camera, as I just executively produced Hellraiser II, so I'm very pleased that that's going on. We will then probably follow that with Hellraiser III and then with Son Of Celluloid. So there's lots."
Running With The Monsters
By Gerald Houghton, Grim Humour, No 14, [Autumn] 1989
[Re 3 picture deal between Barker / FilmFutures and Morgan Creek - the first picture being Nightbreed] "Son of Celluloid is the second picture we'll make together, and the third will hopefully be Nightbreed 2. When Morgan Creek bought the film rights to Cabal they insisted on a more commercial title. They thought it didn't mean anything and they could be right. Who knows?"
Clive Barker's Nightbreed
By Alan Jones, Cinefantastique, Vol 20 Nos 1 & 2 (double-issue), November 1989
"Before [Nightbreed 2] there's Son Of Celluloid which starts filming before the end of the year. We're really running! At last we in Britain can begin to be a force in this kind of area, which we were in the days of Hammer films, and which I don't doubt that we have the technical and imaginative expertise to be again. We've rolled over for the Americans too long."
Stalking The Night Fantastic
By Dave Hughes, GM, No 12, 1989
"I pitched a few of my stories to Columbia Pictures a few years back. They obviously hadn't heard of them but liked the sound of one called Son of Celluloid. 'That's a fun title,' they said, 'what's it about?' And I just said, 'It's about a cancer that does impressions of movie stars...' Their faces hit the floor. Wham! And suddenly I wasn't so welcome in their offices any more."
Barking Mad
By Matthew Hopkins, Video World, June 1990
Pig Blood Blues
...2003 saw Vincent Perreira working on a self-scripted low-budget version of Pig Blood Blues up until the new Films of Blood deal (see Films Still To Come...) was put together in the summer of 2004...Vincent Perreira : "Well, the writer would still own the rights, the film would be produced through his production company. I've had two meetings with them and they liked my ideas, and I've just finished up a longish-treatment for it. We'll see where it goes from here - [It's] Clive Barker's short story Pig Blood Blues."
View Askew
Posted by Vincent Perreira at www.viewaskew.com, 5 March 2003
Vincent Perreira : "Pig Blood Blues is set in one location with a limited cast, and could be done for just a few million dollars tops. It's really my attempt to do a truly 'indie' horror movie, one which will approach not just the horror, but also sexuality from a very European standpoint, something I doubt I'd be allowed to do with a bigger project. Although it's based on an existing story, the project feels very 'personal' to me, much like 'A Better Place' was, whereas 'Autograph' was always meant to be more 'fun'."
I'm Concentrating On Pig Blood Becuase It's Smaller Than Autograph
Posted by Vincent Perreira at www.film-411.com, 28 January, 2004
Vincent Perreira : "I was going to make a 'serious' gay-themed horror film based on Clive Barker's Pig Blood Blues as my
next project, but alas it doesn't look like it's gonna happen.
"The upshot is I'm going to take all the material I created on my own for my PBB script (and I did create a ton of original material to
flesh it out) and construct an entirely new story around it, so all is not lost."
I Was Going To Make A 'Serious' Gay-Themed Horror Film...
Posted by Vincent Perreira at www.mhvf.net, 2/3 July, 2004
The Books Of Blood
...A feature film based around three stories in The Books of Blood - Dread, Human Remains and Pig Blood Blues. Bill Condon was attached to direct a wrap-around segment (The Book Of Blood and On Jerusalem Street) while three first-time gay directors had been given the reins to adapt and direct the three tales: Keith Clark worked on Dread, Jack Morrissey on Pig Blood Blues and Christopher Landon on Human Remains, taking over from Adam Cook who had worked on an early draft. The project was pitched as a gay art-house, horror movie, never intended to appear in your local multiplex.Christopher Landon has been heard muttering darkly about Clive's drift away from being associated with outright horror and the project itself has fallen by the wayside - the final result being the loss of what had the makings of a truly hard-edged adaptation...
INT. ROOM - NIGHT
The woman steps up to Henry and scrutinises his densely tattooed
skin. He opens his mouth to speak, his engraved tongue barely able to
form the words.
HENRY : Come to see if the rumors are true?
HOMELESS WOMAN : I know they are.
She turns to Josh.
HOMELESS WOMAN : Let's get started. We'll need some small pieces of linen. And that
case.
She points to the small metal lens case.
JOSH : What for?
The woman draws a small knife from her pocket. Henry's eyes warm to
the sight of the blade.
HENRY : For my skin. That's what you want, isn't it?
HOMELESS WOMAN : It's their testament now.
HENRY : Be quick then.
The woman's hand trembles as she places the knife against Henry's
chest. She slices off several thin layers of skin, careful to carve
along the edges of each particular story.
Josh rips Henry's shirt into small squares. The woman hands the
skins to Josh, who folds each one in cloth.
The woman is about to cut into Henry's flank when one of the dead
steps forward. A YOUNG MAN, 18 at most, his hollow, troubled eyes
suggesting that his life ended in a particularly cruel manner.
JOSH : Wait.
Josh stands and moves over to the young man.
JOSH : He wants his story to be told. He wants to be sure....
The old woman shifts her position on Henry's body, making room for
Josh to kneel and read the symbols.
JOSH : Stephen Grace.
The woman flays a section of Henry's back.
JOSH : "There is no delight the equal of dread. As long as it's someone else's."
As Josh recites, the words become visible on a white page.
By Keith Clark, Bill Condon, Christopher Landon & Jack Morrissey - October 1999, revised draft
"I see this film as being the first in a franchise of Books of Blood films. Movies that will re-define horror cinema the way the original books re-defined horror literature. Ground breaking in their intensity, revolutionary in their marriage of frank sexuality and horror."
Clive Barker's Books Of Blood
Seraphim Films press release, October 1999
"Those are written, actually. Bill Condon has written one of them and it's tremendous. That will be, in terms of scale, a much more modestly sized picture. I'm looking at something which is much more the size of Gods and Monsters. That way, feeling as though we can really, because the budget will be very modest, that way feeling as though we can really keep the creative controls. You know the Books of Blood were perhaps noteworthy when they came out because they pushed the envelope a little bit. And I want to make sure the movie adaptations do the thing. Hellraiser did that. It's harder, I think now, to push the envelope where horror material is concerned than ever before. I don't think we're seeing a lot of material, horror movies now that really do push the envelope."
Interview: Clive Barker
By Spence D, IGN Movies, 16 December 1999
"There are tremendous scripts, interest from people who want to fund it; there is some disagreement about how strong the material can be. One of the things we initially wanted to do was be faithful to the flavor of the books, which are pretty damn intense... The people who've shown interest in the movie now want to tone it down, and that's before it's even made. Obviously, that's not a good start."
The Dark Backward
By Philip Nutman, Fangoria, No 200, March 2001
Bill Condon : "If there's any model, it's the original Hellraiser.
It's to make a movie that is just as taboo and upsetting as that film.
"We thought of it not only as an opportunity for young directors to
make their first feature film, but also... what would be interesting
next time would be to work with three women. Women have so rarely
filmed horror, so to see three women's take on some of
these stories would be great."
Of Gods And Monsters
By Douglas E. Winter, Clive Barker: The Dark Fantastic, 2001 (Note: interview undertaken in 1999 or 2000)
Tom Joad : "On the written page, this one provides the goods
missing from many a Hollywood release...
"All three stories are tied together, given reason and motivated by a
fourth story which has been added, fully explaining the back story
of the Books Of Blood, that is as compelling as it is original, and
very satisfying. Reading this [script] has been a pleasure. Believe me,
if you like horror films with attitude that make you jump, fill you
with terror, keep you twisting on the edge of your seat AND spit blood
in your face, you will not be disappointed. Everything that needs to
be is here."
Books of Blood script review
By Tom Joad, www.aintitcool.com, 1 March 2000
Bill Condon : "I don't really want to produce... although,
I take that back. I must say, I am working with these young film-makers
on the adaptation of Clive Barker's Books Of Blood and kind of going to
make a real low budget art house gay horror movie - a compilation film.
"The idea of promoting other people the way Clive did with me and the
way Michael [Laughlin] did with me when he first hired me, I think that
kind of mentor system is the way that Hollywood works. People are
always wondering, 'How do you get in and how do you get started?' And
if you look at... boy, it's hard to think of people who are successful
who don't have some patron of some sort or another. Starting with
Spielberg and Sheinberg. And then a ton of people with Steven Spielberg.
So that part of producing kind of... using whatever influence you might
have gained to help people break in... I think is important to do. But
the actual job of producing doesn't interest me that much I have to
say and none of the other things except for writing and directing."
The Ask Hollywood Interview
By [ ], at www.myvideostore.com, 2000
Dread
...Following November 2002's news that Fox were seriously considering a feature version of Dread, Fox, together with Seraphim, selected their chosen writers.From a piecing together of various message board teasers, it became apparent that Scott Swan and Drew McWeeny (aka Ain't It Cool's 'Moriarty') had landed the honour of adapting this much-loved Book Of Blood. (See 'The Books Of Blood' above for the history of Keith Clark's previous adaptation). September 2004 saw a flurry of message board activity (and acidity...) after a draft script began to circulate, and in the summer of 2005 it was suggested that writing honours may have moved on yet again.
Fangoria then reported an interview with Drew McWeeny (see below) who said that Eduardo Rodriguez was attached to direct the project but that a writer was still to be found in support of his vision of the movie...
Dread finally became Anthony DiBlasi's directorial debut, premiering at Montreal's Fantasia festival in July 2009...
"Dread we have a draft, and again I hope that's a movie we can get going next year... [as an] independent movie. When I say independent, I mean they [Dread and Midnight Meat Train] won't go through a major studio most likely. That will give us a certain latitude in the making of them, which I think is useful."
Confessions
By Craig Fohr, Lost Souls, 1 August 2003 (note - full text online at Lost Souls)
"[Dread is] moving well, I think - I have high hopes for it. It's a really superb script and it's a story which I always thought lent itself to a cinematic adaptation. It doesn't have a supernatural element to it, of course, which for certain kinds of people in the studios it's a reassuring element. Supernatural horror either works for people in studios or it doesn't; there's no middle ground. People either get it or they don't. Whereas you can sort of say anything in Dread could have happened. The other end of the spectrum would be handing In The Hills, The Cities to somebody in the studios and saying, 'Let's make a movie!' I think every single one of them would say, 'You are kidding - get out of here, you mad homosexual!' "
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)
"Fox also has a horror movie of mine called Dread, from Books of Blood, that the writers have adapted really beautifully, so I believe that's a high priority."
Clive Barker's Dark Plans
By Joe Nazzaro, www.fangoria.com, 2 December 2004
Moriarty : "When I haven't been working with Revolution in the last fifteen months, I've been working with Clive Barker's
company, Seraphim Films, and again... I've been supported in a way that has not only improved me as a writer, but which has also
clarified what I want to do with my career.
"I remember stumbling across the Books Of Blood not long after they were first published in the US, and I was blown away by the
elegance of Clive's transgressive prose. He was the literary equivalent of David Cronenberg, not afraid to shock, but smart enough to
know why. Working for him, taking one of his short stories and expanding it to feature length while also working to maintain
everything that made it great in the first place, I've learned new respect for the art of adaptation, and I've also grown more confident
about my own voice as a horror filmmaker. I hold very strong views on the importance of this particular genre, and the cultural
impact a great horror film can have, and I am very demanding of others when I'm an audience member. Thanks to the incredible
demands of trying to please one of horror's true masters for the last year, I believe that I am now equally demanding of myself."
Moriarty's Birthday Rumblings!
By 'Moriarty', Ain't It Cool.com, 26 May, 2004
Moriarty : "Keith Clark's script as part of the anthology film was a very faithful adaptation of the story. I admired
the script that Condon put together, and the strength of it was that they were very literal translations of the stories
from The Books of Blood to the bigscreen.
"It's very different when trying to expand the material to a feature, obviously, and there are things that you always end up
doing to the story because you're dealing with a studio. The Condon film was designed to be an NC-17 film that featured
extreme violence and some strong gay-themed sexual material, and it would have had to have been totally independent
because of the approach.
"I have nothing but respect for the work Clark did."
Dread
By 'Moriarty', Dread Central message boards at www.dreadcentral.com, 25 September, 2004
Supernova : "For those of you holding out hope for Clive Barker's career to return to the inventive and influential
grandness it reached before, don't count on this film, at least under this current draft, to be the one that does it.
If Barker himself approves of this it can only be in an attempt to get his name back out there and to use the internet
fame built by Drew 'Moriarty' McWeeny to add some free publicity.
"In short, if you loved the story because you are a true fan of Clive Barker, you will rage over this film version."
There Is No Delight The Equal Of Reviewing Dread
By 'Supernova', The Scorched Planet at www.the-scorched-planet.com, 22 September, 2004
Moriarty : "You hate me. I get it. I'm not about to defend my work to you. There is nothing I
will ever say or do that will meet with your approval, and I couldn't possibly care less.
"So far, there's been one person to please. Barker. Mission accomplished. Next up, we have to please a
director, and if we sign any of the guys we're talking about, that'll be a kick.
"And when the film comes out, I'm confident we'll please the fans at that point."
Dread
By 'Moriarty', Dread Central message boards at www.dreadcentral.com, 25 September, 2004
Drew McWeeny : "The thing I've always responded to about the story is that it's not supernatural; it's one of the few short stories from Clive that has none of those overtones. It's about the shit that we carry inside ourselves, and if Eduardo is going to try and latch an Asian horror vibe with creepy dead girls onto it, that's his thing. I believe it's a mistake; we wrote the draft we wanted to. I know it has been two years since Eduardo's been trying to get his made; he hasn't found a writer yet, and a big part of that is because the material is so strong that it feels almost sacrilegious to graft something else on top of it."
What's Up With The Clive Barker Film Dread?
By Matthew Kiernan, Fangoria.com, 13 October 2005 (note - full text online at www.fangoria.com)
Anthony DiBlasi : "Well, Dread was something that had been in the studio system... Selling Abarat to a major studio kind of put us, put Clive in a different category. Suddenly all the other studios... it was like a big deal, they made a big to do about it. So Universal and Fox and Warner Brothers... everybody bought Clive Barker material. And this is when I came into the scene. So we had all these properties set up at the major studios. Unfortunately, a lot of the major studios, I don't think they quite knew what they were getting into with Clive Barker material. And they were like, that's great, I want to do a Clive Barker horror piece. They want to do it. But what happened is we ended up getting trapped in this kind of development hell at the studios for years. And Dread was one of these projects. Dread was at Fox and they wanted it to be PG-13. And we had a lot of great drafts come out of it, and like a lot of the studio pictures we just couldn't get it off the ground. And you can spend years at the studios, I mean, four or five years and do draft after draft after draft and just never get anywhere."
Interview
By JimmyO, Arrow In The Head, 19 January 2010
Love and Taboo
...Love and Taboo was a project set up to create an anthology of shorts by gay and lesbian filmakers, each short inspired by music composed by gay and lesbian musicians.Barker was to Executive Produce as well as directing one of the short segments and overseeing, with Joe Daley of Seraphim and Marc Smolowitz of Turbulent Arts, the production of a wraparound designed to tie the project together.
Initially set to encompass fifteen short pieces, twenty directors were eventually selected to participate in the $3.5 million feature film. In addition to Barker's short segment, among those slated to deliver a "one to ten minute" original short music film were Bill Condon, Bruce Cohen, John Greyson, Eyton Fox, Paris Barclay and Cheryl Dunye.
The project appears to have stalled, with the planned start of principal photography of "early 2000" having come and gone with no word as to progress...
One of the pieces, Donna Choo's 'Bus Story', was later self-financed when Choo realised the Love and Taboo project was unlikely to happen. Made through the generosity of other independent filmmakers and the unpaid crew and cast, Bus Story was shown at The Hawaii International Film Festival in 2003.
"This collective project will enable fifteen directors to realise their own unique vision, inspired by some of the greatest songs and musical pieces of all time."
Press Release: Love And Taboo
By [ ], 10th March 1999
Joe Daley : "The point of this movie is not for all of us to get rich. If it happens, great. But it's a labor of love, and we know that."
Victory And Taboo
By [ ], The Advocate, 27 April 1999
Marc Smolowitz : "In each of the short segments, the
participating directors have chosen a song or musical work by a 'gay or
lesbian composer' from throughout music history and then considered
ways of re-interpreting and re-discovering that 'gay or lesbian'
composed song. Participating directors have also followed the simple
constraint of imagining their segment inside a scenario of Taboo or
Forbidden Love. For this omnibus, such love is broadly defined, without
limitation or content restriction; and will involve no less than two
'beings' or entities of any kind. The ways in which the song or musical
work functions within each segment, either as a device or a mechanism
of story have been left up to the filmmakers' creative impulse. That
said, these segments are not intended to be music videos. The music
will highlight certain dramatic, emotional and visual qualities
throughout, as each segment moves in all kinds of exciting and erotic
directions, employing diverse musical genres, varying historical
periods, and different kinds of 'geographic worlds'...
"Well before production, the producers will work with Barker to deliver
a final, written script to participating filmmakers. The script will
include the intended presentation order of the 20 segments, including
the wraparound, and will serve to demonstrate how the wraparound will
unify the omnibus as one feature film presentation. The goal of the
final feature presentation is to achieve a seamless, almost
interconnected sense among the 20 segments. Therefore, the wraparound,
as a device, will actually attempt to render itself invisible as a
device. Its structure of presentation shall be more subtle than
heavy-handed, more suggestive than narratively engaging.
"Barker's approach to the wraparound will in part, take its cues from
ideas and impulses as presented in the 20 selected segments. He
envisions the wraparound as a kind of cinematic, connective tissue
which will introduce and carry through the taboo story of two
non-specific lovers. With each new song and segment, these non-specific
lovers will evolve into more familiar and integrated beings, retaining each time more and more of the visual and emotional details related to human, sexual experience. Through well placed special effects and other visual devices, our lovers will literally morph in to the next set of beings, as they move through the changing landscape of the omnibus. From story to story generation to generation, crossing the boundaries of gender, and defying the normal constraints of time and history our lovers will gradually begin to read as accessible and universal figures. As they move through 20 varying segments, their humanity will be brought to the forefront. By the end of 20 segments, they will have experienced the profound sorrows of loss, the joys and ecstasy of reunion, and the taboo pleasures often found only in the realm of forbidden and erotic love."
Turbulent Arts Project Synopsis
By Marc Smolowitz, 1999
American Primitive
...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)
American Horror
...Clive 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
Amok / Madison's Arrow
...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)
The Hellraiser Remake / Reboot / Reimagining (before the 2022 version)
Note, although the quotes below track several iterations of plans for a reboot/remake/reimagining over a fifteen year period, August 2021 saw the movie finally underway ahead of its 7 October 2022 release, with the Hellraiser movie directed by David Bruckner....Despite the ability of the original 1987 Hellraiser movie to stand tall in the company of other horror films of the Eighties (and beyond), the Weinstein brothers decided there was the potential, nearly twenty years on, for a remake. October 2006 therefore saw Clive announce that he had accepted an invitation to write the screenplay and to have a role in the film's production. Clive told us that he was especially looking forward to using the extra funding to improve physical effects - so no more Engineer on wheels then..!
Variety reported that Seraphim's Anthony DiBlasi and Joe Daley would co-produce, with Richard Saperstein and Matthew Stein overseeing for Dimension... October 2007 saw Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury confirm they would be directing and scripting the project, with Clive producing. However, the New Year brought news that the somewhat optimistic release date of 5 September 2008 had now been pushed back to 9 January 2009, followed by reports that Bustillo and Maury had been replaced as writers by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton... and in April 2008 that Bustillo and Maury had left the project altogether, meaning that the January 2009 date had been abandoned...
October 2008 saw The Hollywood Reporter announce that the cup had passed to Pascal Laugier (who directed Martyrs and is also set to direct China Miéville's 'Details') to write and direct this 'dream project'... and Clive was now reported as saying it had become a "re-configuring" rather than a remake. March 2009 brought a treatment heading Clive's way for his thoughts, but June saw Clive mentioning that Laugier is no longer directing... maybe good news for Doug Bradley given Laugier's comments in SFX the same month...
Another year, another proposal... October 2010 had Dimension announcing (via Variety ) that Todd Farmer and Patrick Lussier would be taking on this project, with production slated for the new year ahead of a late 2011, early 2012 release. However, following the release of Hellraiser: Revelations to secure continuing rights, September 2011 (see below) saw Todd Farmer confirming that he and Lussier were no longer involved.
October 2013 saw Clive revisit his 2006 acceptance to write the script, with the proviso that Doug Bradley reprises his Pinhead role (see below)...
...and in October 2014 Clive mentioned (here) that he'd be utilising the 'Devil's Island' story which was previously part of the 'Heaven's Reply' short in the Black is the Devil's Rainbow collection.
...May 2019, though, brought new news with Gary Barber's Spyglass Media Group having hired David S. Goyer to produce and write a reboot screenplay.
...and bringing us bang up to date, August 2021 saw the Spyglass Media movie underway. Directed by David Bruckner (Night House, The Ritual), based on a script by writers Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski (Night House) with a a 7 October 2022 release date on Hulu.
"They're going to remake Hellraiser One with a lot more money and they've invited me to write it - the invitation came from Bob
Weinstein - which I am going to do, on the basis that if I don't do it, it will be done in some way that I probably won't like!
"It's only that one that I really, really, really care about in terms of its remake value - and it'll be kind of fun to have the extra
money to do the effects and all that cool stuff...
"I'm excited about it - actually it'll be kinda cool to revisit it once and see if there are things we can do to it which will make it
significantly better... I am very happy at the idea of having some more money for the cool stuff - I don't know how much more
money, but it's got to be more than the $900,000 that we had the first time!"
'It's Yours - It Always Was...'
By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 20 October 2006 (note - full text here)
"When I'm done with Gospels, I'll begin writing Hellraiser 1 while I'm doing the paintings for Abarat part three... I just wouldn't be at
peace with myself if I gave this [remake] writing gig to somebody else, and I've always had in the back of my head what I wanted to
do. There are things which are going into the movie which I've had tucked in my brain for years.
"I haven't talked to anybody else [involved in the original] about this... I'm going to write it and see how it goes. I'm hoping Doug [Bradley]
will be back [but] this will be a different Pinhead."
Clive Barker Talks New Hellraiser
By Ryan Rotten, Fangoria.com, 23 October 2006 (note - full text online at www.fangoria.com)
"There are some areas of the first movie where I think we can be a lot more intense and a lot more scary... It will not be simply a reworking or reshooting of the first picture."
'Hellraiser' Back From Dead
By Stephen Zeitchik, (i) Variety.com, 8 November 2006 (note: full text online at www.variety.com), (ii) Daily Variety, 9 November 2006
"If this is gonna happen the last thing I want to happen is A.N.Other coming in
and doing something which is violently antithetical to the feeling and the mythology...
"I think it's going to be its own thing; frankly, it's going to have its own life. One of the things when I went to look at the movie
again - I steeled myself, because I don't like watching my own work - I looked at it and I thought the performances by the women
in this are what hold the movie together - particularly Clare; I mean I think Clare Higgins's performance is fucking
magnificent, you know without her.... When I bring that movie to mind, it's her eyes, it's the images of her face, cleaning blood
from her face, her taking down the hammer from the wall, the expression on her face totally transformed; it was an awesome
performance. So what I'm saying is, although the structure may roughly be the same, it will be a totally different movie
because it won't have Clare Higgins in it, it won't have Andy Robinson in it...
"We shouldn't downplay the fact that all movies work or fail on the basis of their performers, although sometimes performers can
be a pain in the ass! We'll see, I'm excited.
"I've already begun [writing]. While I'm waiting for Scarlet Gospels to arrive in typed form I have started Abarat Three and
Hellraiser One on the basis that everything changes anyway in movies, so I'll just take a crack at it. I have some reasonably
radical ideas; I
want to answer questions that people posed in the first one like, 'Who was that old guy?' I think that's a completely
valid question - and I have no answer to why he was eating a cricket, just that it was a disgusting image! ...It feels to me as
though one of the things people always wanted is a clearer sense of the mythology that
lies behind this world and I'm hopefully delivering some of that...
"I think Dimension definitely
wants to make this movie and I think they are looking to me to re-freshen the palate and I have some ideas which I think will
not violate the mythology, remembering of course that that mythology is hugely developed in the book I'm writing. So, I have
the answers, I don't have to make up the answers, they're right here in the novel [Scarlet Gospels]. If we actually go down to Hell
for any tiny period, I have a very clear idea of what Hell should look like.
"I'm just getting on because I know what will happen: Bob will call me in the New Year and say, 'Where's my script?' and I don't
want to be saying, 'Where's the paperwork? I'm still waiting...'"
Pinhead's Progress
By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 15 and 22 December 2006 (note: full text here)
"The Hellraiser treatment has been signed off on by Miramax. They have it in their hands and they like it, and they want a bit more Hellraiser mythology, which is music to my ears - it's the first time I've ever heard that request! You know, where do I sign? But they've already signed so that's fine..."
A Spiritual Retreat
By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 26 March 2007 (note - full text here)
"If they're going to do this - and they are going to do it - I want to be involved, but I don't want to be so much a part of it that I feel I'm simply returning to old territory. I feel as though I always want to be breaking new ground, which is the reason I took up painting and wrote the Abarat books. The moment that I feel like I've got it all sussed and have figured it all out, I won't be me. I'll be somebody else entirely."
Gone And Back Again
By Carnell, Fangoria, No 268, November 2007
"I will watch over two Frenchmen who will remake it and only because I think they are two very splendid young men
who made a fucking great movie. I like them both. I like the movie Inside. It's very good, very bloody and they are very nice smart
guys who have a commitment to the original movie...
"I have no interest in turning Hellraiser into game. Firstly, I don't have the rights so if somebody's going to do it they can do it.
I earned 21,000 dollars from writing and directing the first movie and it was my deal with the devil, god bless 'em. I'm fine with that.
I have no interest in that. I feel like we're constantly looking over our shoulder, it's all retro at the moment... I think it's all the
more reason that they remake it; that they don't take my version of the story. I had some specific suggestions, which I don't
want to spoil for you or anyone else, about how things might be taken up a notch or two. And you know S&M just isn't what it
used to be! So if we're to do the whips and chains and the hooks we have to do them at a whole new level because I think it's
tired material... It's not just Pinhead, the whole fucking movie has to be scary again. My commitment to being involved was
really based on these guys who had a bloody good idea that had nothing to do with what I had in my head. So more power to
them."
Jericho / Hellraiser: Clive Barker Reveals All!
By Mister Disgusting, Bloody Disgusting.com, 7 November 2007 (note - full text available online at www.bloody-disgusting.com)
"It's not going to be a 'remake' remake. I hope it isn't. I would be disappointed if it was.
"Back in the Universal days, there was 'Son of Frankenstein,' 'House of Frankenstein' and 'Bride of Frankenstein.' They made
those movies back in the '30s. Once characters are fixed in audiences' heads and they like them, why not go back to them?
The problem is, can you tell a new story? My beef with recent stories is that they haven't been fresh. They've been tired and worn
out. In a way, when you let these things out into the world of cinema, you sort of let them go their own way. It's foolish to try to
control them. There will be tears before bedtime if you do.
"There are two Frenchmen who are writing and directing the project together. They want me involved, but it will depend on where
they are making the movie. I'm very happy to be involved in some degree. These two guys have a very interesting revisionist take
on the mythology, which I like, so more power to them."
Pushing The Boundaries Of Horror And Fantasy
By Larry Nichols, Detour, Philadelphia Gay News, 16 November 2007 (note - full text available online at http://epgn.com/)
"It's being written and directed by two Frenchmen. They actually made a very good movie called À L'Intérieur, which premiered at the Toronto Film
Festival. Bob Weinstein hooked them up with me. They're going to remake it - and radically re-design it.
"I am, [OK with that], Andrew. I look at it this way: the film that Clive made is the film that Clive made. I made it my way, and it wouldn't make
sense to try to remake it. So what they've done is take the basic elements and reconfigured it in a way that makes a lot of sense - and they have
a lot more money. I had $900,000 and 23 days to film it, and was paid the morbid sum of $21,000 to write and direct it."
Clive Barker: Raising Hell
By Andrew Davis, Windy City Times, 9 January 2008 (note - full text available online at www.windycitymediagroup.com)
"Bob Weinstein at Dimension owns the Hellraiser franchise and he has just sent me a movie by a French director whose name I cannot say right now [Pascal Laugier]. If I like this film then they want to hire this guy to write and direct. Right now that is where we are with Hellraiser: searching for the right person to give Pinhead new life. And I should add that I don't have, in principle, any problem with them taking a new crack at the story. If Pinhead is worth a damn he should be able to stand up to a quality re-telling and this is what we are planning for Hellraiser. It is definitely not going to be a remake. It is going to be a complete re-configuring of the original story."
Back Into Hell
By [ ], SFX, No 177, Christmas 2008
"I fuckin' love Martyrs. I'm glutton for intensity, extreme stuff. Martyrs is certainly extreme, it's a movie that has courage and commitment. [Pascal] is someone who really, really cares about horror movies. I'm supposed to be seeing a treatment soon. I'm not certain but I believe he is going to back to the first movie but not with an obsessed loyalty. He's taking the first movie as a launching board, a rock model, but there are things you can obviously do now both visually and sexually. It was always a sexual movie - the censors told me I had to cut a scene because it has spanking in it. You're telling me I can have the skinning, but I can't have the spanking? It's a different time, so I'm excited."
Barker Praises Laugier, Talks Pinhead Design
By Ryan Rotten, Shock Till You Drop, 13 February 2009
"My understanding there is that I will receive a treatment for a script from the director - who made a wonderful movie called The Martyrs, a French picture - and I'm supposed to receive that, I think today, actually, and then we're going to have a conversation and, all things being equal, he will then go away and write the script and I will executive produce the movie and he will direct."
Pod of Horror #52
By Mark Justice, Pod of Horror, March 2009 (note: full podcast online at www.horrorworld.org)
"Yes, there is an update of Hellraiser in the planning stages, however, I think my role on that will depend on whether or not the narration is one that I can get my heart behind. I have been asked to act as a producer on it and I am going to do my very best to remain involved. At the moment I don't want to call it a remake because it is more of a reconfiguration that they have in mind. Bob Weinstein, who owns the material, sent a film called Martyrs to me and I was very impressed by it. The director of that, Pascal Laugier, is now taking the reins of the new film and I don't have any problem with someone talented coming in and taking a crack at it. As far as I am concerned Hellraiser is strong enough to be worth revisiting - I just think that it is important not to do the exact same story all over again."
Still Raising Hell
By Calum Waddell, Judge Dredd Megazine, No 286, 21 July 2009
"Pascal Laugier is regrettably no longer on the Hellraiser remake. I think Martyrs is extraordinary.
"I don't know much more. I mean why would anyone tell me? I mostly discover these things here or through friends who still buy the trades."
Twitter posts
By Clive Barker, Twitter, 2 June 2009
"HOT FROM HELL! My friends, I have some news which may be of interest to you. A few weeks ago I had a very productive meeting with Bob Weinstein of Dimension Pictures, in the course of which I pitched a remake of the first HELLRAISER film. The idea of my coming back to the original film and telling the story with a fresh intensity - honoring the structure and the designs from the first incarnation but hopefully creating an even darker and richer film - was attractive to Dimension. Today I have officially been invited to write the script based upon that pitch. What can I tell you about it? Well, it will not be a film awash with CGI. I remain as passionate about the power of practical make-up effects as I was when I wrote and directed the first HELLRAISER. Of course the best make-up in the world loses force if not inhabited by a first-rate actor. I told the Dimension team that in my opinion there could never be a Pinhead without Doug Bradley, and much to my delight Bob Weinstein agreed. So once the papers are signed, I will open a Lemarchand Configuration, dip my quill in its contents and start writing. I promise that there will be nowhere on the Internet where the news of my progress will be more reliable than here, because the only author of these reports will be Your Infernal Correspondent, me.
"As questions are asked I'll do my best to answer them, though as you all know making movies is a volatile art, and things seldom remain fixed. One question regarding the rating has been asked. I asked it too, and Dimension confirmed that they are purely interested in an R rated picture. Somebody else asked why I'm not writing something original. The answer is that I am. After HELLRAISER I intend to write and direct a completely new horror movie, which will mingle graphic horror and erotic content, to create an unrated film which will push the envelope of extreme content further than ever..."
Facebook posts
By Clive Barker, Facebook posts, 25 October 2013
"I think the phrase is 'reboot,' although I've never really understood what that meant. I wanted to make sure we sounded some fresh notes. The movie actually begins on Devil's Island. I wanted to fold into the Hellraiser narrative something about the guy - the Frenchman Lemarchand - who made the mysterious box, which raises Pinhead. I figured, 'Well, what would have happened to him?' He might well have been taken to Devil's Island and I thought that would be a pretty cool place to start the movie. We're waiting for Bob to come back to us and see when we're going to actually make the movie."
Clive Barker is Back From the Dead
By Clark Collis, Entertainment Weekly, October 2014 (note - full text online at ew.com)
David Bruckner: "Night House was loosely inspired by a Hellraiser pitch that Ben and Luke had gone in with back in 2012, 2013, when the rights were still with Dimension. When I was in post- for the Night House, Spyglass (the production company Spyglass Media Group) brought in Ben and Luke to do a first draft and [then] brought me into the fold"
Get first look at Jamie Clayton's Pinhead (and a brand new Cenobite!) in new Hellraiser
Clark Collis, Entertainment Weekly, 1 September 2022
Doug Bradley: "Hi everyone! Just arrived in Orlando for Spooky Empire, to be greeted by the news via FearNet and Clive Barker's Facebook that he is writing a new Hellraiser script and intends that I should play Pinhead again. This is intriguing news, about which I know absolutely nothing. No one has contacted or spoken to me about returning. So until you hear from me to the contrary, assume that all rumors about me returning as Pinhead are only rumors. Peace & Pain."
Facebook posts
By Doug Bradley, Facebook posts, 25 October 2013
Alexandre Bustillo: "We are actually writing the script right now and we don't want to remake exactly the Clive Barker movie. We have met Clive and told him what we want to do with Hellraiser and he said, 'It's fucking good do it!' We are happy to have his benediction. It will not be a remake. It will still be called Hellraiser and it will have a new Pinhead."
Inside Directors Speak On Hellraiser
By Blake, Twitch, 11 October 2007 (note: full text online at www.twitchfilm.net)
Bob Weinstein: "Julien and Alex showed their incredible creative talent on 'Inside,' and I'm excited to have them at the helm, working with Clive Barker, to create a fresh, suspenseful and scary reimagining of the classic tale."
French Duo To Remake 'Hellraiser'
By Michael Fleming, Variety, 15 October 2007 (note: full text online at www.variety.com)
Julien Maury: "We really don't know. It's quite fresh, this decision to hire these two guys we don't know
[Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton]. I spoke with the Weinsteins last week and we're supposed to do a
conference call with these guys, and with Clive Barker, to expose their way of seeing the movie. So we are just
waiting for the next step because we don't want to be just directors doing another bad remake. We'll wait and see if
we stay on board...
"The script we originally wrote is not a remake. We tried to rebuild the franchise and reinvent the mythology of
Hellraiser and Clive Barker was okay with that. He was really excited about our ideas and what we wrote. And you know,
what we wrote was really, really different from the original. We only kept the character of Pinhead and the
Cenobites and we reinvented all the rest. But obviously they didn't like it because they hired new
scriptwriters, so we'll see..."
Enfants Terribles
By Stuart F. Andrews, Rue Morgue, No 78, May 2008
Doug Bradley: "Now, I knew nothing about this until I was checking my e-mails in the Marriott hotel in Birmingham,
Alabama last Saturday morning. So I gather Clive has made some comment about being asked by Bob Weinstein to remake
Hellraiser or re-write it in some ways. Now all I can tell you is I don't know anything more than what everybody else is commenting
on and reacting to. I haven't spoken to Clive...
"If it's a question of asking Clive to go back and re-explore the territory, so to speak; a kind of look again at areas that he maybe felt
he didn't explore this time around, that he could explore this time around..? I don't know, I don't know..."
Interview
By Dee Snider and Debbie Rochon, Fangoria Radio, 27 October 2006
Doug Bradley: "So let's come to Hellraiser. This has fallen out of a clear blue sky
in the last few weeks and I can't comment on what is planned because, quite simply, I don't know. As for my response, mixed
feelings don't come close. As with The Omen, throwing more money at it won't necessarily make it better, and state-of-the-art CG
may just make it look and feel like everything else. Part of what makes Hellraiser special is the real-time 'hand-made' physical
nature of a lot of the special effects. On the other hand, we could finally decide whether the film takes place in England or
America: take the British Rail 125 Express out, clarify why Kirsty's boyfriend has an American accent if he's one of those English
guys she was warned about and why Julia has apparently trawled the bars of whichever US city we're in searching for bald English
guys to club to death and feed to Frank. Now that is perverted. And you need to find performances to match the original - Clare
Higgins' Julia in particular. And you'll never better Chris Young's score.
"Clive's comments are intriguing because they suggest some kind of re-working, re-visiting, re-thinking rather than just a remake -
which sounds interesting, but I wonder whether that's what Bob Weinstein wants. Clive is also talking about it in the same breath
as The Scarlet Gospels, but I thought that related more to the end than the beginning. As a fan and a friend, I can't wait to read
the book, but I haven't spoken to Clive about it so will make no attempt to second guess him in this. Watch this space, I guess."
The Official Speak To Doug Thread
By Doug Bradley, Forum, Doug Bradley.com, 16 November 2006 (note: full text online at www.dougbradley.com)
Doug Bradley: "To come to your specific question, you bet I'd be interested if I had the chance to play Pinhead again. As to whether I will, well that remains to be seen and relates to the ongoing discussion about the announced remake of Hellraiser. I would add that I think that the announcement of that remake means it's very unlikely that a Hellraiser 9 will get made and that, whatever else happens and whether or not I have any further involvement, it would be wise to assume that that series is at an end."
The Official Speak To Doug Thread - Hellraiser 9?
By Doug Bradley, Forum, Doug Bradley.com, 11 January 2007 (note: full text online at www.dougbradley.com)
Doug Bradley: "Well, what there's talk of is a remake of the first one. That's as much as I can tell you, really, because
that's as much as I know. I know that someone on IMDB has posted that I am 'in talks'. All I can say is if that's the case, then
these talks are very, very, very, very quiet. Nobody's contacted me about anything to do with the remake either as to say they're
going to be using me or as to say they're thinking of using someone else.
"I would assume that remaking the first Hellraiser film implies as far as the series as it is stands is static. I can't imagine them
wanting to make a Hellraiser remake before they make a Hellraiser 9. I think it's a 'that must be it, then' sort of way. I think the
series as a whole is finished.
"[Re. no Hellraiser 9 movie] Don't take my word for that! I'm just trying to put 3 and 3 together and make 29. But I just assume they
won't. I can't see why they would want to go back and remake Hellraiser and then wanting to go back and having to continue the
series.
"So that's where we are on this. Obviously history is not on my side for doing remakes. When they waste everybody's time and
money remaking a movie, they don't tend to use the original cast.
"But it's less than two years since the last Hellraiser movie was released so I'm very confident it might not happen. I'm absolutely
ambivalent about remakes. Really ambivalent. It doesn't make it more 'real'. But if they were to offer me the chance to re-do it, if I
had the time I'd probably do it. But exactly what that plan is, I don't know."
Crowgrrl's Perch
By Athena Schaffer aka The Crowgrrl, Crowgrrl.com, 11 March 2007 (note: full text online at www.crowgrrl.com)
Doug Bradley: "Nobody has spoken to me about it, one way or the other. If I'm asked, of course, I'll do it! I am protective of the character and I do care about it. But also, if it meant that, as an actor, I was asked to do it again, but tasked to find new beats for Pinhead as a character to exist - all the better. I think that there are lots places that we haven't really explored with him. One, actually, is right at the beginning of the first film. When he walks through the chains over the remnants of Frank and puts the pieces of his face back together, dabbling his fingers in the blood. There's a kind of childishness there - of putting the jigsaw right, of wanting to recreate the being whom he's just destroyed. It's a beat of child-like curiosity that's right there on the surface and we've never gone back to it. Huge areas just begging to be explored."
An Interview With Pinhead
By Christopher Monfette, IGN.com, 16 October 2007 (note: full text online at http://uk.dvd.ign.com/)
Doug Bradley: "Yesterday I had two more Anchor Bay interviews back-to-back at lunchtime. Immediately prior to
them, I intercepted an email from Gary Tunnicliffe, currently shooting in Louisiana with Joel Soisson who directed me in
Prophecy 3, alerting
me to Dimension Films' 're-announcement' of the Hellraiser remake, one year since this first broke upon me in a hotel in
Birmingham, Alabama. Writing and directing duties have now been handed to two French guys, Julien Maury and
Alexandre Bustillo. Whether that means Clive will now have no direct involvement is unclear at the moment. The looming
Writers' Guild strike will be focussing minds as well.
"Gary's timing is perfect: both interviewers (ign.com and playboy.com) make reference to it so I'm not wrong-footed by it.
Interviews over, Gary's on the phone. It's great to hear him again and, as always we're in fits of laughter in short order.
Where this new announcement leaves me, I have no idea. I have only repeated in interviews what I have said already
that, apart from what everyone else is seeing in Press Releases and on the Net, I know nothing and nobody has spoken to
me directly about it."
Doug's Diary
By Doug Bradley, Doug Bradley.com, 17 October 2007 (note: full text online at www.dougbradley.com)
Doug Bradley: "I have no idea whether anybody intends I will be involved in it, but I will do it again like a shot. If it involved taking different beats with Pinhead, that would also be fine by me. I think there are lots of areas that we never looked and never went to. History is not on my side with remakes that don't intend to use original cast. You know, if it's going to happen, it's going to happen - and I wish it absolutely nothing but good, if I'm involved or not. I'm not the biggest fan of remakes."
Still Raising Hell
By Gilbert Macias, Playboy.com, 23 October 2007 (note: full text online at www.playboy.com)
Pascal Laugier: "This is a dream project for me. I know Clive Barker's work very well, and I would never betray what he has done. Fans are expecting a definitive Hellraiser, and I don't want to take that away from them."
'Hellraiser' Redo In Laugier's Hands
By Borys Kit and Gregg Goldstein, The Hollywood Reporter, 29 October 2008 (note: full text online at www.hollywoodreporter.com)
Pascal Laugier: "Hellraiser is a child's dream coming true. I saw the first when I was 13, I remember precisely the shock it had on me because it was so new, so fresh, so it's very hard to resist the temptation to do Hellraiser, you know? So of course. When you come from my culture it's like amazing you're even proposed to do Hellraiser. So of course I felt about it a lot. Right now I have no reasons to refuse the opportunity because if I disagree with the producer I would leave the project. You know, I'm not forced to do anything I don't want. So, let me write the first draft, let me tell you what all the American producers have reacted to the reading of the first draft and I will tell you if I'm in good hands or if I'm gonna leave a hellish experience but in any case, I won't betray Clive Barker's work. I want to do a fresh film filled with a lot of unexpected and surprising things. At the same time, I want it to be connected to the real, original material... I'm talking about the novella and the first film that are very close to each other.
"We'll get the chance to have much more money than even Clive had in the first film, so it will be of course more epic, it will be bigger, and I hope that it won't be softer. And right now I trust the guys in Dimension You know? It's all a matter of human relationship. I talk a lot with Bob Weinstein, he cares about the projects, he's a movie buff, he knows a lot about cinema. But at the same time he's Bob Weinstein and he's a very realistic money maker. So it will be a battle, and I hope that a balance will be found so the film will be close to my vision. What can I say? I'm not sure. I can't sign with my blood that I'm gonna achieve..."
Northlander Interviews Martyrs' Pascal Laugier - And He Spills About His Hellraiser Remake!!
By The Northlander, Ain't It Cool News, 29 December 2008 (note: full text online at www.aintitcool.com)
Bob Weinstein: "If I could make all my films from franchises, I would."
'Hellraiser' Redo In Laugier's Hands
By Borys Kit and Gregg Goldstein, The Hollywood Reporter, 29 October 2008 (note: full text online at www.hollywoodreporter.com)
Ashley Laurence: "It's really exciting to see Hellraiser considered such a classic that a new generation of filmmakers want to revisit it. Whatever your opinion of remakes, when they're done right, it's like re-discovering a great story but told in a new voice."
Hellraiser's Ashley Laurence Talks Hellbound: Hellraiser 2
By Tim Janson, Mania.com, 30 December 2008 (note: full text online at www.mania.com)
Gary Tunnicliffe: "I then started getting worried when I heard of varying story ideas and grandiose pitches from an assortment of writers and potential directors. What worried me the most was when I heard that a new Pinhead would be required - a reimagining, something more 'now', more 'hardcore.'...
"The reality of the situation hit me. If I didn't redesign it, someone out there probably would. And even though I have been involved with Hellraiser since 1993, it's no guarantee I would be invited back for the possible remake. Here was talk of French directors and, hey, that probably means French makeup FX designers, right?
"I figured, I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't, I may as well at least try to create something, throw my version out there to see if it sticks. At the very least, it might end up on YouTube and people would know that I tried. Maybe tried and failed, but at least tried. So we embarked on 'Project Angel: Recreating an Icon.' "
Pinhead Reborn
By Gary J. Tunnicliffe, Fangoria.com, 3 February 2009 (note: full text online at www.fangoria.com)
Pascal Laugier: "The stills of the new Pinhead you published on your site [Fangoria] a few days ago have nothing to do with the official Hellraiser reboot project I'm preparing.
"I've never met Gary, and although I respect him a lot, I want to be very clear about the fact that my vision of the character will be totally different. It is crucial for me to make it really clear. The new look of Pinhead is a very important matter to all of us... Right now, it's just too soon. I'm still writing it."
Hellraiser Remake Update/Clarification
By Tony Timpone, Fangoria.com, 6 February 2009 (note: full text online at www.fangoria.com)
Pascal Laugier: "I am not going to betray Clive Barker's vision of this. The original world of Hellraiser is so graphic and so well illustrated. I intend to keep that atmosphere that the first film had. But, when you look beyond all the flashy visuals, Hellraiser is a character-driven story. I would describe this version as a twisted romance...
"I am currently completing the script, but everything will loook a little different - including Pinhead... It would be a bit odd to put Doug Bradley back in the make-up, wouldn't it? I just cannot see people accepting a new-look Pinhead with the same actor saying the words. But that does not mean I won't speak to Doug about making an appearance in the film..."
Demon Days
By Richard Edwards, SFX, No 183, June 2009
Doug Bradley: "Having someone else play Pinhead and the fact that they are doing a remake bothers me on so many different levels. That character, much like Robert [Englund] and Freddy, is one that I really worked hard to make mine, and seeing someone else become Pinhead feels like a kick in the teeth.
"The studio hasn't asked me to come back as Pinhead, and they really couldn't care less what I think about the remake. I think studios need to be looking for the new Tobe Hoopers, John Carpenters, or Clive Barkers rather than taking a ride on someone else's work. It's cheap, and it's disrespectful I think.
"Hellraiser deals with the ideas behind sado-masochism and nothing else. I don't think it would even get greenlit these days when you take into consideration the very conservative stance most studios have right now. I've seen some stuff on the Internet that indicates Dimension wants to soften it a bit, and I guess then my reaction is this: Why bother remaking something if all you want to do is butcher it?"
Doug Bradley Talks Hellraiser Legacy
By Heather Wixson, Dread Central 16 December 2009 (note: full text online at www.dreadcentral.com)
Matthew Stein (Executive Producer): "We see this as an opportunity to reinvent this franchise while still staying at its core roots."
Dimension Revives 'Hellraiser' Franchise
By Justin Kroll, Variety, 20 October 2010 (note: full text online at www.variety.com)
Patrick Lussier: "We [Todd Farmer and I] are officially a go to get it written and we're hashing out the story right now and then we'll go through Bob Weinstein with how we want to approach the massive Hellraiser mythology that exists and how to work within that do something unique. One of the things we didn't want to do... We think Clive's film stands on its own. We think it's brilliant and it made such a specific, dark vision at that time unlike anything that had come before it. So going to do just a remake of his movie but with more money is not something we wanted to do. We wanted to work within the Hellraiser lexicon... We want to pull from the world that Clive created. Specifically that's what we wanted to do. In that original film he opened so many interesting doorways and opportunities that that's what we want to explore - always keeping in mind what he had done and how he did it and just working within that world...
"They [The Weinstein Company] talked to us about it about a year ago. We were talking about Halloween 3D and everything about that. We had worked something up for it at that time but then Halloween sort of lept to the forefront. And then a year later they came back to us and said, 'Hey! About that thing that you have, how would you feel about fleshing that out more?' I think we had a different approach than any of the others that they had heard. We wanted to make a grown-up movie, not a teen movie...
"If you're going to make a Hellraiser movie, you're basically looking at a franchise that went from Clive's movie up to the Hellraiser-in-Space movie, Bloodline, which had some great stuff in it, actually; the way it goes backwards and forwards in time, and Angelique is such an interesting character..."
Director Patrick Lussier Talks The Mayhem Of Drive Angry, What To Expect From The Hellraiser Remake
By Peter Hall, AOL Moviefone Cinematical, 15 December 2010 (note: full text online at www.blog.moviefone.com)
Todd Farmer: "What's interesting is when they first started talking about it, the discussion was, 'Well, we don't really want to remake Clive's film because his movie is there, it will always be there, and it sort of changed all of the rules.' It was so unique for what it was. I can't remember seeing anything like it. It's funny, the only thing I can liken it to is the first time I opened up Fangoria; I was like, 'I can't believe that this is actually being printed, that people can actually look at this.' Hellraiser was the same thing, so we don't want to reinvent that wheel. What we're doing is sort of modernizing and putting our filthy spin on it.
"Some people are upset that we're remaking Hellraiser. This is the thing: I feel like we did a good job with My Bloody Valentine, I trust me and I trust Patrick. Somebody's going to remake Hellraiser, and personally, as a fan, I'd rather it be me, and that's sort of the way I'm going about it. I know that sounds a little arrogant, but what I don't want to do - and I don't want to dis anyone - but there have been remakes I didn't like, and others where I was really interested to see what happened. Remember, we grew up with remakes. The Fly and The Thing, those were remakes and they were fantastic. Cronenberg took the original idea and spun it into something completely unique, and Carpenter did that with The Thing.
"That's what we want to do when we do remakes. With My Bloody Valentine, they literally made [the original] for 40 bucks and a box of smokes. We put some money behind it and did it in that aspect. The idea is to treat it with respect. Hold to the original to a degree, but take it somewhere different, show the audience something new. Clive's Hellraiser will always be out there, and it will always be on my shelf and I'll pull it off like I always do and watch it. We don't want to change that; we don't want to burn the copy that exists. Clive's brilliant, why would we ever do that? We just want to add to that world.
"The script for Halloween 3D... Patrick and I re-read it recently and we really love it... we're still hopeful that one day it'll happen. But all of the focus is on Hellraiser, and we couldn't be more thrilled with what we've come up with."
Todd Farmer Talks Remakes, Hellraiser And Halloween 3D
By Samuel Zimmerman, Fangoria.com, 20 December 2010 (note: full text online at www.fangoria.com)
Todd Farmer: "At the end of July, Bob called Patrick. They played phone tag. We had neither reached out nor heard from TWC since the whole H3D thing went down at the end of '09. So we were, to say the least, curious... After a week of phone tag, we finally learn the reason for Bob's call: Hellraiser. Well, this will excite and annoy sections of the horror world. We had actually pitched a take of Hellraiser a year ago. Over a year. In fact, we pitched Bob three movies at the same time. H3D, Hellraiser and Scanners. And throughout the whole Hellraiser discussion, H3D never came up. We still scratch our heads at this, because the script for H3D is just... well... just sitting there. We're pretty certain Bob never read it. But perhaps August wasn't the time to ask. Bob was clearly VERY excited about Hellraiser. Plus, Patrick and I love Clive and love the original. With Bob this excited, someone was gonna make it. May sound arrogant but I trust us.
"So Patrick and I started talking about our old pitch... and... it changed. It became... hard to describe. It gained a life of its own. As a writer... when the story... or the characters... or both...break out of your head and start doing stuff YOU didn't see coming. Stuff you DID NOT plan. Well. That's when the magic truly happens."
Angry Hellraisers... Driving
By Todd Farmer, Todd Farmer's journal at Wendago.com, 27 December 2010 (note: full text online at www.wendago.com)
Patrick Lussier: "I don't know if reboot is the right word or remaining or reinvention, or re whatever. We pitched them a pretty aggressive turn in the story, leading into the world that Clive created in the first one. But not an essential remake, because Clive's film is a landmark horror movie. Why remake something that holds up so beautifully. That story is such a personal story. We talked about doing a hard and fast remake. And then talked about, "What if we take the parts of that story, the parts of the world that you're never allowed to see, mostly because they didn't have the money or the time, and what if we walk into that world? What if we walk into the facets that Clive showed the world, but didn't have the means to drag you in kicking and screaming?
"Hopefully we'll be able to look at [talking to Clive] later in the Spring when hopefully we'll have the full script to work with."
Drive Angry Director Explains Why Satan's Right-Hand Man Is An Accountant
By Meredith Woerner, io9.com, 27 January 2011 (note: full text online at http://io9.com/)
Patrick Lussier: "We are into the thick of it, and it's very exciting. It's something that when we went in to pitch to Bob (Weinstein), we told him that we didn't want to remake a classic, and that the original Hellraiser stands as it is. It's a personal movie for Clive, and we want to play with the world that he has created, and to go behind the curtain behind what you see, and to see more of that world, as opposed to retelling the story of Frank and Kirsty.
"The film is so beloved by genre fans, but it's also so personal... So we want to be very respectful of the source material and at the same time not step on the movie that Clive made."
Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer Talk Halloween 3, Hellraiser and More!
By Sean Decker, Dread Central, 23 February 2011 (note: full text online at http://www.dreadcentral.com/)
Patrick Lussier: "We're keeping it within the world of the box. What the box is and what the box does... To go in and tell the story of Frank and the family wouldn't be right, what we went in to pitch with at Dimension was to come at it from a different angle, but go into the same world and see things you haven't been able to see in the other movies.
"We had the contracts changed to specifically say we were delivering an R-rated film. The treatment we turned in, it was like, if you're expecting a happy ending, stop reading now."
Different Story, Same World: Lussier, Farmer On The Hellraiser Remake
By Ryan Turek, Shock Til You Drop, 23 February 2011 (note: full text online at http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/)
Todd Farmer: "For the most part, it's all about what we want to do. I'm familiar with what the fans want, but -
"A lot of times, I tend to think I go with the majority as far as horror is concerned - which movies are good, which ones screwed up - so the idea is to create movies and stories that Patrick and I want to see, and just hope that the majority follows along. That's the intention, anyway."
Todd Farmer Collaborates 'Angry'
By Samuel Zimmerman, Fangoria.com, 24 February 2011 (note: full text online at http://www.fangoria.com/)
Todd Farmer: "[Hellraiser] is so unique and tells such a personal story so we don't really see the need to remake it. Our plans are to take the mythology and set it in a modernized world that makes sense in context with the original. It's not a remake and it's not a reboot - it's something else entirely. But we are definitely planning for our Hellraiser to be very R-rated so fans shouldn't be worried there."
Todd Farmer Gives Updates on Halloween III, New Hellraiser Flick
By thehorrorchick, Dread Central, 25 May 2011 (note: full text online at www.dreadcentral.com/)
Patrick Lussier : "Doug is pretty critical and key to the whole history of the franchise, just his face and how it looks covered in the pins and his voice, just his presence. That's something that we're working through with Dimension right now, about the uniqueness in the approach to Pinhead and how he'll appear and how he'll resonate with the past and how he'll be presented to the future."
New Hellraiser Movie Defies Explanation And Features Elements Of Origin, Says Drive Angry Duo
By Terri Schwartz, MTV Movies Blog, 25 May 2011 (note: full text online at http://moviesblog.mtv.com/)
Todd Farmer: "We developed several versions for Dimension, but in the end we never saw eye to eye creatively... Originally what they wanted was epic and dark, rated R. It was in our contract. So... if WE do 'Hellraiser', it's rated R; if they want to do PG-13 then they have to get rid of us... To me it seems impossible to do 'Hellraiser' as a PG-13."
Todd Farmer Talks Halloween 3D And Hellraiser!
By BC, Bloody Disgusting, 7 September 2011 (note: full text online at http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/news/26223)
Todd Farmer: "Lussier and I are no longer attached to Hellraiser... We pitched, sold and wrote a take, then we developed a couple additional approaches. In the end we never fully connected creatively. Nothing wrong with that. Happens all the time. We wish Hellraiser and TWC the very best and look forward to what they come up with... My only access to Clive was through Twitter thus I tweeted him a few times but never heard back. Understandably."
Hellraiser Remake & Halloween 3D Updates
By Deth Banger, Horror-Movies.ca, 14 September 2011 (note: full text online at http://www.horror-movies.ca/2011/09/hellraiser-remake-halloween-3d/)
Doug Bradley: "I gather word is beginning to spread about the new Hellraiser movie [Judgment] which is,
apparently, already shooting...
"First, a point of clarification. This is the first time I have said anything about this. Anything else you have heard me
say about any proposed Hellraiser film refers to the constantly rumored remake. And, for the record, I still know nothing
about that..."
Facebook post
By Doug Bradley, Facebook post, 18 February 2016
Primal
...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. Clive 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
The Razorline Series
...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 Clive'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
"Right now, I'm producing an adaptation of my children's fable, The Thief of Always, for Universal Studios. It is being directed by Bernard Rose, who also directed Candyman. The only problem is the budget: fifty-million dollars. That puts more pressure on me to please the people fronting the money for the movie. Hellraiser was so much fun because we made it with only nine hundred thousand dollars. There was no need to conform. If it bombed, nobody was going to lose any 'real' money in Hollywood. It was less of a risk, so it was mine to do with what I wanted. That possessiveness was the real pleasure of making the movie."
Pinhead And The Human Condition
By Dan Clarke, Inklings, Vol 3 No 4, Winter 1997-98
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
The Thief Of Always - Kelly Asbury
...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, saw The Hollwood Reporter sharing the first comment we had seen from Asbury himself which encouraged those who feared that the project was losing momentum. As of 2008, the movie (being produced by Seraphim for Fox) was still to be live-action, as hoped, with Clive remaining close at hand to produce, but this version was not to be fulfilled.
Subsequently, fresh eyes looked over the project and May 2013 saw Clive happy to confirm that Oliver Parker had taken the helm...
"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
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)
"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
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
End Of Days
...No - really... The same End Of Days in which Ahnuld saves the world (again)... Directed by Clive..? 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
Alien 3
...On the same track of big budget film-making, Clive passed on this one too..."There was talk of me directing Aliens 3, but I didn't want to do it. They're excellent films but I want what I do to come from me."
Clive Barker
By Paul Mathur, Blitz, No 49, January 1987
"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 turned down a request to write and direct Aliens III. My agent in California went mad - you've never seen an agent in such a state of mortal panic as when I said no. It would have brought me millions, presumably. Incidentally, he's not my agent any more."
Queasy Does It
By Martin Burden, New York Post, 17 September 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
...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
