Current TV Projects

Hellraiser

Unrelated to the Spyglass Hellraiser movie project (see here) Deadline announced in April 2020 that HBO has made a deal to develop a Hellraiser television series, with Halloween's David Gordon Green set to direct the pilot and several of the initial episodes and the series to be written by Mark Verheiden (Battlestar Galactica, Daredevil, Heroes) and Michael Dougherty (X-Men United, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Trick r’ Treat). All of them were announced as executive producers alongside Dan Farah, Roy Lee, Lawrence Kuppin, David Salzman, Eric Gardner, Danny McBride, Jody Hill and Brandon James... with Andrew Farah and Adam Salzman as co-executive producers...
The day before Halloween 2020 saw Clive announce his involvement, alongside Marc Toberoff joining the executive producer roster...

"I'm delighted the Hellraiser mythology is seeing a new life. It's time the stories went back to their roots. I'm eager to bring to a new audience the most powerful and ancient elements of horror: the darkest evil invading our human lives and how we must find in ourselves the power to resist it."

Just In Time For Halloween: Clive Barker’s Back To Raise Hell

By Mike Fleming Jr, Deadline.com, 30 October 2020

Dan Farah : "Hellraiser started with Clive’s imagination and we couldn’t be more excited to have him on board."

Just In Time For Halloween: Clive Barker’s Back To Raise Hell

By Mike Fleming Jr, Deadline.com, 30 October 2020

"It looks plausible. I mean I don’t know… I just don’t know anymore. There’s a lot of things going on and the struggle for control over the thing is what concerns me. I have lots and lots of ideas about what we might do with the Hellraiser narrative on television and the question is how much – I don’t want to use the word power, I don’t even want to use the word authority – how much sharing I will be able to do because there’s a lot of people engaged on this project, most of whom I don’t know … I may as well just confess this, I’m betwixt and between. Part of me says, you know, I originated this, and for the last 25 years not a month has gone by without me thinking of something I want to do with it. Meanwhile, a bunch of other people who I haven’t known have been making movies, using the mythology, and I sort of want to go back to basics, I want to go back to those first two or three movies and look at what worked and use those as a jumping-off place for some really, really dark, wickedly perverse narratives, and the question is how much freedom they will allow me to have to do that and I simply don’t know.
"It won’t be for want of trying if I can’t do it, I will try my damnedest, I certainly will, just because I feel – and it’s stupid to say – possessive of it, but I feel I know a lot of things about those narratives and those characters that I’ve never been able to share and so there are some really, I think, mind-blowing ideas I have which come from almost meditating on this narrative for almost three decades."

On The Way To Heaven, We Had A Picnic Of Ideas...

By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 10 November 2020 (note - full text here)

Theatre of Blood

Alongside director / producer Mick Garris (The Stand, Masters of Horror, Fear Itself, Quicksilver Highway) Clive has been writing new material to create original 'Books of Blood' style stories for the Theatre of Blood project. Early days on this venture but the duo are excited by working together again, and we'll have more detail as the project progresses.

Mick Garris : "Clive Barker and I are planning to create a new anthology series together and so we are just now about to start pitching that, but we’ve put together a treatment and a philosophical point of view on how to do it. It will be all be made in the UK, should it come to pass, but I’m very excited about that."

Episode 108: Ask Mick Anything

By Mick Garris, Joe Russo, Post Mortem Podcast, 10 February 2021

"I’ve been writing a lot about London because of these stories, and I think you can probably now talk about the fact that I’m doing these Theatre of Blood stories with Mick Garris. This is Clive Barker’s Theatre of Blood. It is ten new, utterly new, stories written in the tradition, if you will, of The Books of Blood, directly in that tradition. In other words, in my head even though we’re changing media I am thinking that these are ten more stories to become the seventh Book of Blood, if you will. And it was Mick’s idea to call it the Theatre of Blood, which I think is perfect."

Talking Of The Painting Of The Abarat

By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 27 March 2021 (note - full text here)

"For the Brits over there, I'm going to be flying over to make I think ten shows in England next year - and I'm telling you this on the down-low; I shouldn't tell you anything more than that...
"I am [excited] too because it's the first time I've been back to Britain to make anything with British actors and British directors, British cinematographers for a very very long time and the whole idea is that it's all British. And also really, really hard-core horror...
"We've actually got a show called Royal Blood which makes sure that I really never do get on the list of knighthoods."

Clive Barker Interview

By José Leitão and Ryan Danhauser, The Clive Barker Podcast, Episode 300, 11 April 2021

Mick Garris : "It’s very exciting, it’s an anthology of all new stories of [Clive’s] devise and I will be producing with [him]."

Episode 119: Clive Barker

By Mick Garris, Joe Russo, Post Mortem Podcast, 28 April 2021

"Let’s talk about what we’ve got coming: we’ve got Clive Barker’s Theatre of Blood... and we’re doing them all in Britain – we’re going back to the country that produced Frankenstein, and Jekyll and Hyde and Dracula. And by that I mean Britain – Dracula was written by an Irishman, Jekyll and Hyde was written by a Scotsman and Mary Shelley of course was English. But one note, to bring this conversation full-circle, we were talking about Wimpole Street [where I lived in London]... I was surrounded by the ghosts of artists...
"I like to honour the past because we know nothing about the secrets that are hidden in our world; sometimes hidden in plain sight. And so one of the things – and we’ll talk about this soon off the air, but I’ve got eleven cities – eleven locations I should say, they’re not all cities – in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland for our Theatre of Blood and I started to look into their histories and Lord – the number of stories that have never been told!"

Episode 119: Clive Barker

By Mick Garris, Joe Russo, Post Mortem Podcast, 28 April 2021

"In the Books of Blood I’d attempted to write stories that were my own subgenre, if you like, you know, six books in which I would write tales in many different tones and with very many different subtexts...
I wanted to come back to that again and do it for television. Why television? Because it gets to a huge audience and because I love England, I love Wales, I love Scotland, I love Ireland, though in different ways, and I thought it would be a wonderful thing to create narratives that were set in the places that I knew. I mean the places that I’ve been to in those various countries.
"So that’s what I did. I produced ten narratives which I then took to Mick and Mick said, ‘Yeah, I’ll join you on this.’ I took them to my agents and my agents sold them to Shudder.
"So it’s a series of British originals, stories of mine which Mick and I will produce – without overall title right now, but all to be set in Britain. Shudder is very, very clear that what they want is whatever you would call the Barker style or the Barker approach.
"As your phone call came through I was doing a last pass on the first of them, I suppose you’d call it the pilot, which is called London Voodoo.
"London Voodoo is done in the sense that I’ve written a thirty page summary and now we will do the teleplay which will be an hour long. The other nine of those ten stories are already summed up."

Fear, Love, Story... and Time

By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 29 and 31 March, 1, 23 and 26 April and 31 May 2022 (note - full text here)

Animation Project - from the Books of Blood and More

Working with Daniel Dominguez and Jason DeMarco, Clive has added several new stories to five existing Books of Blood stories for this new series from the adult animation arm of Warner Bros. Discovery.

"So, I was approached by Warner Bros. last year to do a series of stories, some of which would be taken from the Books of Blood, many of which would be originals, each of which would be twenty, twenty-five minute animations... actually a man called Jason DeMarco who is head of adult animation at Warner’s, came to me and said, ‘Listen, I love the Books of Blood, the first thing I’d do is In the Hills, The Cities.’ So that’s what’s happening, that’s what we’re doing. He’s tending to take ambitious visual stories like In the Hills, The Cities but, in addition to the five stories from the Books of Blood that he named, he also wanted me to originate another six, which is what I’ve done.
"What I would say is that my ambition for these stories was and is that they be in no way a diminution of the quality that was in the original Books of Blood. These stories, both in terms of their content and, if you like, their style – though obviously they’re not literary, they’re visual – they needed to sit comfortably with the Books of Blood stories. And I actually ended up creating eleven stories which will go into Mr DeMarco’s compendium, making a total of sixteen. He wants to do eleven at present. Their actual length is hard to be sure of but they won’t be less than twenty minutes apiece. This man is marvellous – he knows my stuff inside out and so does the man who brought me in the first place to Warner Bros., a man called Daniel Dominguez with whom I’m working on the project.
"You know, it’s a Books of Blood project so we may end up calling it The Books of Blood but it’s something that has taken an awful lot of time and creative energy because I was trying, I have been trying to create a body of stories that would be as rich and resonant as the stories in the original Books of Blood. I don’t want to feel that just because I’m writing them in words but creating them as scripts for animation that they should be in any way less powerful, less provocative, less intense, less extreme than the original Books of Blood were. I think I can say confidently that I’ve done everything in my power to make sure that’s the case. None of these are stories that I’ve talked to anyone else about, except to Daniel who I shared them with, so they’re not yesterday’s food warmed up, they’re new narratives with new ideas which are disturbing and all the things I hope the original Books of Blood were."

Fear, Love, Story... and Time

By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 29 and 31 March, 1, 23 and 26 April and 31 May 2022 (note - full text here)

Nightbreed

In 2012 we spoke to Clive as he was hopeful that cable TV could offer Nightbreed the sort of home it needs to accommodate a visual feast. Since then the release of a director's cut of the movie sparked equally hopeful discussions in 2014.
2018 brings fresh news as Clive comes together with Morgan Creek, Syfy and Universal Cable Productions to work together on the Nightbreed project (see press release quoted below). Michael Dougherty (Godzilla: King of the Monsters, X-Men: Apocalypse) is writing and directing, in collaboration with Clive as producer. More to follow as the project develops...

"We are also actively in conversation about doing a Nightbreed television series which will be for cable, so it will have a chance to be as sexy or as graphic in terms of the violence as we need it to be. For example, do you have Spartacus over there? Oh my God, it redefines gruesome... I also applaud them for finally realising it's not a bad thing to see a manhood once in a while - it's not as if half the world doesn't see it daily...
"The sensitivity of our culture has sort of caught up with Nightbreed. I don't wish to be immodest but the general sense is that the movie failed because people didn't want to associate with the monster and I think our culture has changed - I think our culture is now ready to embrace the ambiguity. You've only got to look at Twilight where obviously the monsters are the good guys - I'm not a huge fan but I'm enough of a fan to watch and see monsters being celebrated. There's something very satisfying about seeing the evolution of the werewolves..."

A Light, Hidden

By Phil & Sarah Stokes, 12, 14 March, 2012 (note - full text here)

"This story has been near to my heart for many years. I'm beyond thrilled that SyFy and UCP are taking this journey with us, and I cannot wait to see it brought to life on the screen."

Press Release

By Morgan Creek, 22 June 2018

Scream Factory : "Morgan Creek Television is actively developing a television series based on this film."

Press Release - Nightbreed: Director's Cut

By [ ], Scream Factory, 1 July 2014

James G. Robinson (Morgan Creek) : "There have been inquiries and there have been discussions. As far as where we are right now, I can't tell you, because you really don't know how it's going to go, unless you finally have a contract in place."

Clive Barker is Back From the Dead

By Clark Collis, Entertainment Weekly, October 2014 (note - full text online at ew.com)

David Robinson (President, Morgan Creek) : "There has never been a more relevant time for us to turn to one of the genre's great cult classics from our movie library to impact the national conversation with bold, compelling and unconventional storytelling. The team at Morgan Creek is very excited to partner with Clive Barker, Syfy and Universal Cable Productions on Nightbreed for a unique, trenchant and no-holds-barred exploration of race relations in today's society. As a sophisticated twist on the classic graphic novel form, Nightbreed pits 'Humans' against persecuted monsters, using metaphor and parable to take on bias and prejudice with real-world consequences."

Press Release

By Morgan Creek, 22 June 2018

"Nightbreed is also moving forward at quite a rate with a couple of very well-known directors showing a great deal of interest in it. I am on board to provide mythologies and ideas and hopefully put the Barkerian weirdness on the material. At the moment, we're putting the team together: we have a writer, director, producers and now that the New Year has begun we'll all get together and start to plan the long-term narrative, not just the opening narrative which is what we've done so far. I have the sense that, if all the things that I've been promised come true, there is a real passion for matching the tone of both the book and the film."

Out Of The Depths

By Phil & Sarah Stokes, 4 January 2019 (note - full text here)

"I'm working right now with a wonderful director called Michael Dougherty who did Godzilla 2, who is a dream of a guy. We're doing a television series of Nightbreed together: Michael is directing, writing-directing, and I am producing. He is a superb, superb, creator."

Monster-Mania Hellraiser Panel

Panel appearance at Monster-Mania, Cherry Hill, 17 August 2019

"[re. forthcoming Nightbreed TV adaptation] It’s exciting, after 30 years, to go back to these characters and find out who’s still speaking to me, who wants their story told. My tongue isn’t in my cheek when I say that as when I start a piece, it’s listening. The writing is a piece of listening, I’ve always said I was a journalist and what I was reporting on was the space between my ears."

Exclusive: Godzilla’s Michael Dougherty to Direct Nightbreed Series!

By Grant Hermanns, ComingSoon.net, 30 September 2020

Josh Stolberg : "I can't say much about that, what I will say, is it's in Michael's hands right now and we're really excited about the future of it...
"I'm producing the 'Bible' for the Nightbreed series right now, and that's exciting because that's a series which has been in my head for the longest time. I think we'll certainly see that next year, at least go into production next year. And we have Mike Dougherty who did, which was an awesome movie... King of the Monsters. So we've got Michael on that. I'm very enthusiastic and optimistic about it."

Nightbreed Writer Shares Excitement for New Clive Barker TV Series

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Comicbook.com, 27 May 2021

Weaveworld

...This one reminds us of the fabulous Monty Python poster proclaiming that The Holy Grail 'makes Ben Hur look like an epic..!'. In the latest chapters of a long running saga that's in danger of being a bigger fantasy epic than the original novel, when Showtime (who Clive has been forthright in his praise for in getting Gods And Monsters to the screen) was still behind the project it seemed only to need a last minute decision on the location for principal photography (favouring Australia over Ireland) then pre-production would be underway... in September 2002. That overwrote earlier plans for part of the action to be relocated from England with the auction for the magical carpet taking place in New York instead.
Following input from (amongst others) Peter Lenkov (brought in to re-work elements of Michael Marshall Smith's original script), the original producer, Robert Page (who was at University with Clive) and Russell Mulcahy (Highlander and the US adaptation of Queer As Folk) a new screenplay by Showtime's own Steve Molton brought the action back to Liverpool, where it belongs.
Later, news came that the project - after ten years there - was no longer with Showtime, and Clive continues to mention the title in his keenness to find the right people with a new enthusiasm for a project which stays true to Weaveworld's English roots...
In September 2015, chatter around the Weaveworld project was re-ignited as The CW (a US joint venture between CBS and Warner Bros.) was reported to be developing it with a modernised adaptation.
Although Clive himself was unaware of the project, he was reported to be executive producing the drama series alongside the writer, Jack Kenny, whose adaptation involved an app designer teaming up with a pastry chef destined to be the guardian of a mythological realm, accessed via a portal in an old Savannah mansion. Six months later, the reports were repeated but in October 2016 the same source reported that a new writer - Josh Stolberg - had been hired to take on script duties.
Stolberg has since announced (January 2017) that he has submitted a Weaveworld pilot script...

"Everyone always asks what is happening with Weaveworld. Well, we are going to shoot it but not as a theatrical release. It will be a mini -series along the lines of Stephen King's The Stand. It'll run for eight hours. I have certain reservations though, I think the show will be a compromise, but at least it will bring the story to a whole new audience. Hopefully they'll enjoy what they see and then read the book."

Lord Of Illusion

By [ ], Home Cinema Choice, September 1996

"It would be disastrous as a two-hour movie. It's a huge novel with lots of layers and ideas, and this way we would have a good chance of keeping the layers and the complexity intact. We would make a couple of narrative changes which would bring in the American end, but nothing that would violate the novel."

Monster Invasion

By Mark Salisbury, Fangoria No 133, June 1994

[Re. outlook for Weaveworld following BBC Drama budget cut]"I had a conversation with them this morning saying, 'What are we going to do about this?' I don't know. Not all the money is coming from the Beeb, by any means. Showtime is also in there, so I suppose there'll just be some different carving up but I never now how those kind of monies work. I think the other thing about the Beeb is that you don't know how much their protesting and their howling is just because they're not going to be able to work quite the way they want to, but you never know when they're telling the truth. I'm not saying for one moment that they're lying through their teeth but I am saying that one of the best things the Beeb could do now is complain, really hard, about how little money they have..."

World Weaver

By John M Farrell, Hot Press, No 13951, 1995

"The BBC/Showtime 'Weaveworld'. A second set of paperwork has been finished and the plan is to go before the camera before the end of the year. I've been frustrated by plans and projections; it's going to be happening this September, it's going to be happening this December, in the spring. Things like this have been going on for a long time. I am no longer able to, with any confidence, put my hand on my heart and say well I think it's going to be X or it's going to be Y. I think there's great will to make it happen and I have come to the point where I say it will happen when it happens."

Confessions

By [Stephen Dressler and Cheryl Bentzen], Lost Souls, Issue 4, [July] 1996

"I talked to people last week with Showtime and with Michael Marshall Smith who's doing the adaptation. I know they want to get it before the camera before April of next year so that means that M.M. Smith has to do what he needs to do on the screenplay in the next 2 months or so. It 's a big screenplay - it's 8 hours of T.V. But it seems to be proceeding."

Confessions

By [Stephen Dressler and Cheryl Bentzen], Lost Souls, Issue 5, October 1996

"We will get the first teleplays for the first three hours of six next week. Hopefully we will proceed on that next year [1999]. After all the many hopes and dashed hopes, we might finally get this thing in front of the camera."

Confessions

By Stephen Dressler, Lost Souls, Issue 12, January 1999

"We are in the early stages of a large scale 6 hour adaptation. It will be a Showtime original. One of the partners in the project is Hallmark, of Merlin fame. I have very high hopes for the project. It's been a long time in development."

The Dominion

Transcript of an on-line session at The Dominion, website of the Sci-Fi Channel, 8 March 1999

"[Weaveworld is] in good shape. We have a script. I think what we are waiting for is to attach a director to it. That's one I should come back to you on, because I'm not sure where we are. But I know the script is done. And I know there is huge enthusiasm over at Showtime.
"It's an expensive one, but it's also one where I think the technology has caught up I think with being able to do this. I think five years ago you would not have been able to make Weaveworld properly. And I think CGI can give us all kinds of things that we could never have before."

Confessions

By [Craig Fohr], Lost Souls Newsletter, September / December 2000 (note - interview took place 25 August 2000)

"It's looking extremely good, finally. We're looking at probably shooting it in Australia. Russell Mulcahy will shoot the first two hours and, I hope, the entire thing. I've known him since his Highlander days. He's just a great guy.
"Because it's a big book, preproduction will be enormous. There are special effects up the gazoo - physical effects, [computer-animated] effects, a whole world to create. I think it will be a marvelous project, and I'm very pleased Russell's going to do it."

Weaveworld Near Production

By [ ], Sci Fi Wire, www.scifi.com, 16 March 2001

"Weaveworld will go into pre-production in September and I don't think there's any doubt about that. The only question now is whether we shoot in Ireland or Australia; we're just looking at those two right now. It would be so wonderful to have that sort of [Irish] landscape... But pre-production will start in September and we'll start shooting in January 2003."

Open Roads... What Price Wonderland?

By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 3 April 2002 (note - full text here)

"It's six hours of very heavy, special-effects-intensive material."

Saints Come Marching

By Kate O'Hare, Zap2it.com, 18 October 2002

"Here's an interesting one. The head of Showtime has just retired. I think retired is the word you'd use. I don't think he's going on to another job. I was told just before I went off to Seattle, the new guy is a huge fan of the material, so my hope is we'll find it will become the mini-series that we all hope it will. We have someone who wants to direct, a place to go shoot it, and it's been a long journey. And we have a marvelous teleplay. Ah, teleplay is such an old fashioned word isn't it? Umm... script for television. I've always said this was the way to do this particular book because you take a book, which many people are very fond of and it would be reprehensible to cut it down into something that would be a reasonable two-hour entertainment. The only way to do this would be a miniseries."

Confessions

By Craig Fohr, Lost Souls, 1 August 2003 (note - full text online at Lost Souls)

"[Weaveworld] is moving with real speed now - Fox have come on. Fox TV have come on to be the other half of the funding for the thing. So my understanding is that we're really off to the races. The script is having a final pass made on it and then I think we're going to go to a director and hopefully next year we'll actually make this thing! Next year it will have been in Showtime's hands ten years! It's amazing: I'm sure there are projects that are longer in people's hands, but ten years... nations have lived and died in the time!
"I'm optimistic because the people behind it have never really ever let it go and I like that. There seems to be an ongoing passion for it and I think the fact that fantasy is now so huge, in the cinematic form at least... it might have finally found the moment when people can see getting behind it with the sort of money it needs to have. So, fingers crossed...
"I get crazy because every three months I wake up, and for some reason my mental processes have stirred it up again in my brain and I go, 'What the fuck's going on with Weaveworld?' And I call my agent and we get an update and the interesting thing is the enthusiasm never dies down! But it's never in quite the right form or there's not quite enough money - sometimes it feels like real Alice in Wonderland stuff, but I think we're almost there."

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)

"A fellow called Bob Greenblatt has come in at Showtime and he's a really smart guy who likes the project, so I have high hopes that that's going to happen."

Clive Barker's Dark Plans

By Joe Nazzaro, www.fangoria.com, 2 December 2004

"And the best news of all is that I think Weaveworld is finally going to get made - can you believe that?
"It seems that finally a wonderful guy called Steve Molton has pulled a draft together that everybody likes - it's a very cool draft, a very smart draft and very respectful of the book. There's great passion at Showtime to make it so I think that we are presently chatting with folks over your side of the water because it takes place in England, it will be shot in England... One of the first things we did... there was a huge change of regime at Showtime and when we went in to talk to the new guy at Showtime, Bob, who is a very smart guy - I said, 'You know the thing I really think we should do is just go back to the book and put this back in England where it's set'; it's an English book - and the sweat and effort it's taken to Americanise something that never wanted to be American! So I gave Steve Molton, who has spent some time in England, a huge pile of books - you know, all my AA guides to England, which I used when I was writing Weaveworld because they are wonderful for little out-of-the-way details - they are fantastic as research tools and they seem to be in principle the most unpromising of books but they're actually great. And so I gave all of those to Steve along with several books of photographs; things that I really liked and he came back with just a wonderful, moving draft that really reinstated the bitter-sweet, the yearning qualities that are in the book and it's very satisfying."

The Lazarus Muse: Nights Of Magic, Days Of Gore

By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 2 June 2005 (note: full text here)

"Weaveworld, which is with Showtime, is finally going to be shot this year, six hours of it. On a scale of one to ten, I think it's looking like somewhere between a seven and an eight, which is certainly better than it's been before. They've had it for ten years, so that's certainly the highest number it's been so far."

Weird Fantasy

By Joe Nazzaro, Starburst, Special No 76, July 2006

"We finally got it out of the hands of Showtime after ten years and we would love to find an English backer who would be interested in taking on these scripts, which are superb, and doing these things the way they should be done - so this is a little APB..."

Sowing The Seeds Of The Story Tree

By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 28 August and 4 September 2006 (note - full text here)

"There has been talk, and there remains talk, of us doing a miniseries of Weaveworld. I am trying to press for Liverpool to be the place to make it. I haven't lost that battle but I haven't won it either, so we will have to wait and see. I would love to see it made into a film but it has been around for so long now that I refuse to get my hopes up."

Still Raising Hell

By Calum Waddell, Judge Dredd Megazine, No 286, 21 July 2009

"I think Weaveworld would make an amazing mini-series, without the need to remove any of the narrative. If somebody would just ask me..."

Facebook Posts

By Clive Barker, 1 August, 2013

"I love my home city. It shaped me, body and soul. If the production of Weaveworld as a miniseries goes forward then I will do all in my power to shoot the exteriors in Liverpool..."

Facebook Posts

By Clive Barker, 21 October, 2013

"We at here at SeraphimArts are negotiating to turn Weaveworld into a mini-series. Although it would be wonderful to see the magical raptures of the novel appear on a cinema screen, I think it is even more important to preserve as carefully as possible the complex threads of interwoven narrative, and that is a challenge best met within the time-frame of a long form television mini-series. As always it will be here on Facebook that will do my best to report the progress of what will inevitably be a very complex project."

Facebook Posts

By Clive Barker, 15 November, 2013

Michael Marshall Smith : "I'm trying to put in as much of Clive's stuff as possible, and even stuff of Clive's that isn't in the book in some ways, which is to say that I'm trying to incorporate some of his core ideas and core images. Obviously, the whole thing needs to be condensed for television from the original text too. Weaveworld is so complex and multi-layered that even in eight hours you can't tell all of it.
"One of the good things about the production is that the client, Showtime in the States, have a head guy called Jerry Offsay who has read the book and understands it and basically wants to go hell for leather on it, so they've told me to put in all the sex and violence and swearing I want.
"Apart from that, there are certain specifics that come into it. For example, most of the action takes place in the States, rather than England, though the early scenes will still be set in Liverpool. Hobart is now an American FBI agent, rather than an English policeman, and even things like who's going to play Shadwell come into it, because it makes an enormous difference to how you write the character if he's going to be played by Bob Hoskins, say, rather than Rutger Hauer."

Touched By The Hand Of God

By Mark Morris, SFX, No 11, April 1996

Michael Marshall Smith : "In 1995 I did a first draft of an eight part mini series adaptation of Clive Barker's Weaveworld. Then there was a hiatus while they sorted out various things, because there were some personality clashes. The original production company have now been lobbed off and it's just writing directly for Showtime in LA. I'm just starting a second draft for that now."

Michael Marshall Smith

By Graeme Hurry, at FantasyCon XX, 5 October 1996 (note online at http://freespace.virgin.net/g.hurry/mms_int.htm )

Michael Marshall Smith : "I did spend about a year doing a first draft for an eight-part mini-series adaptation of Weaveworld, which was a trip. I was due to start writing a second draft but then a series of dull, surreal and bizarre wranglings in LA meant that it got delayed into the time I was supposed to be starting a new book, and so I had to let it go. It's something I'd like to get re-involved in, but I'm just too busy on other things at the moment...
"Through the Weaveworld job I took the risk of going full-time as a writer. It very nearly didn't work, I can tell you, and I still feel the shadows gathering sometimes."

Michael Marshall Smith - Online Chat

By [ ], Virgin Net, [ ] (note online at http://www.virgin.net/chat/celebrity/archive_39.htm )

Michael Marshall Smith : "Unfortunately there were some very complex production issues involved, a lot of personal acrimony at levels well above my head, and the end result was that I ended up working like a dog for 18 months - much of it without seeing any money - and ended up being, how shall I put this? given what I regard as an object lesson in the level of trustworthiness in some parts of the movie business, over the full payment of fees in particular. There was then a long hiatus while the production was realigned, partly to remove the producer in question.
"Unfortunately by the time this was sorted out I was already late starting a novel I was contracted for, and I couldn't just drop everything and get on with another draft - never mind the fact that the project by that stage occupied a somewhat complex position in my emotional landscape. There has been another delay since, but I heard late last year that another writer has now been attached, and that the project is proceeding. I hope so. It really deserves to get made, and a lot of people have put a lot of effort into it. I would have loved to have seen it through to the end, and would very much have valued working further with Clive, but it just didn't work out that way."

The Trans-Genre Man: An Interview with Michael Marshall Smith

By David Mathew, (i)The Third Alternative, 2001[?], (ii)SFsite.com, 2001

Michael Marshall Smith : "[Writing Weaveworld] is one of the longest and most convoluted stories I know. Basically - and I'm going to have to be circumspect here - there was a long haitus last year while a number of personal differences were resolved between the production companies involved. The unfortunate upshot was that by the time came round to start the second draft, I was pushing into the deadline for my next book.
"I have completed first drafts of all eight hours: whether I will be doing the second draft depends on a number of factors outside my control. Clive is obviously very keen that the project get back on course as soon as possible, and so it's possible another writer my do the next draft. I have the book to finish, and also a second draft of a movie I wrote earlier in the year.
"As you can imagine, dramatising Weaveworld is a hell of an undertaking. I hope it comes off - wouldn't it make a great mini-series? The people at Showtime are very behind the project, and show a real understanding of it."

Michael Marshall Smith on Spares

By Ed Bryant, Omni Visions online chat, 3 July 1997 (note - online at www.omnimag.com)

Michael Marshall Smith : "I was hired, in a somewhat haphazard fashion, to write the whole of an 8-hour television miniseries version of the book. It was the first screenwriting I had ever done, and I was utterly psyched to be working on such a seminal story, and for the chance to work with someone who I admired enormously.
"The actual process turned out to be rather wearing, partly because there was a production company in England, the network in the US (Showtime) and various other agencies (the BBC, and a Canadian company) involved from time to time. It involved 18 months of drafts and redrafts, each of which was scrutinized by up to nine people, some of whom had only tangential relevance to the production. Eight hours is a lot of script: think of it as four feature films back to back, all based on the same original material. I wasn't paid for a very long time, and when I was... well, let's put it this way: it provided an object lesson in trust. I finally got a first draft finished that we were all happy with, but then there was a long hiatus while the production was realigned to remove one of the production partners - who'd managed to royally piss off everyone else involved, including me. This basically left me on hold for nine months, not knowing if I was still on the project, or even if there still was a project.
"Finally Showtime came back to me and said 'Okay, let's go...' but by that time I was late starting a novel I was contracted for (Spares) and so I had to ask for more time than they felt able to give. So... the project went quiet for a while, as they looked for other writers. Then last year I heard from them that they'd found one, I handed over the disks of my draft, and it's history. It's a shame, because I would have liked to see it through to the next stage, but it just didn't work out that way. Life moves on. "It was a very, very useful introduction into the industry. I saw both the worst of the Hollywood process (financial misdeeds, lies, endless redrafts and waiting) and the best (working with Clive, working on such a good book, working with Showtime, who were great to me and really want to do the book justice). I think it helped give me the beginnings of the kind of insight into the way the industry works which can only come through experience."

A Conversation With Michael Marshall Smith

By Duane Swierczynski, SFsite.com, July 1999

Josh Stolberg : "I love this Clive Barker book and am so excited and honored to be working on it."

Twitter post

By Josh Stolberg, Twitter.com, 3 November 2016

Josh Stolberg : "So, Clive Barker signed my copy of #Weaveworld. Great motivation as I work to finish the draft of the show!!"

Twitter post

By Josh Stolberg, Twitter.com, 21 December 2016

Imajica

...Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) clearly relishes a challenge and having taken on the adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand is now looking to tackle Imajica. Together with Jill Killington, he's announced that he's working to adapt Imajica as a one season TV series...

Josh Boone : "I have this vision in my head of doing all these books I loved when I was young and kind of bringing them to the screen at the highest level they can be brought at, because I know how it was in my head when I read them and how vivid they were...
"When I was a kid I loved this book, Imajica, and we're going to do like a one-season TV mini-series of that novel... I was doing press for Fault [in Our Stars] and this incredible company - I love these guys - called MRC called me and said, 'What do you want to do; we'll option anything you want?' and I said, 'I want to do Imajica as a TV series,' and they were like, 'Let's do it,' and they went and made the deal and I was meeting Clive Barker a couple of weeks later - an incredible experience...
"I'll fit it in after The Stand. You know, there's really nothing like Imajica on TV, it's so out there that like there's not really anything competing with it that makes it that hard to do and we'll do that - I think I shoot the pilot after the first Stand movie and squeeze that in nicely between the first one and the second one."

Josh Boone: The Fault In Our Stand

By Kevin Smith, Hollywood Babble-On (note - full audio at: soundcloud.com/hollywoodbabbleon), 17 November 2014

Mark Miller : "We're in talks [for Imajica]. That's all [I'm] allowed to say. I'm excited. It's one of my favs too!"

Twitter Updates

By Mark Miller, 11 November 2014

Lord Of Illusions

...This second Barker project for Showtime looked close to a deal, having called on Rick Ramage (credited with Stigmata and The Proposition) for writing duties. However, summer 2003 saw Clive suggesting that a resurrection of the long-anticipated Vipex/Lord Of Illusions movie sequel (see Films Still To Come...) was the more likely option for the time being...
Scroll forward a decade and Clive comments (below) on new hopes for a Harry D'Amour show...

"This afternoon I'm going to talk about the Lord of Illusions series, the Harry D'Amour TV series which is going to come from MGM."

Nips And Tucks, Tits And Fucks

By Phil and Sarah Stokes, 10 July 2001 (note - full text here)

Joe Daley : "We just handed in the pilot script to Showtime and MGM. The script is by Rick Ramage, who wrote Stigmata. Clive and I are very excited about it... We're taking Harry D'Amour in a very exciting direction."

Barker Preps Lord Of Illusions Series

By [ ], Fangoria.com, 27 September 2002

"We just got a very positive response from MGM and Showtime, so hopefully we'll have that before the cameras before long. Ramage turned in a fantastic script. Man, it blew me away."

Saints Come Marching

By Kate O'Hare, Zap2it.com, 18 October 2002

"What perfect timing to ask your question. I have a meeting about creating a Harry D'Amour television series next week. When I have concrete news, it'll be here for you."

Facebook Updates

By Clive Barker, 1 November 2013

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