Clive Barker talks about the HELLRAISER reboot – Not really a reboot

Jesus wept. If there’s one film that has been stucking a strangely ironic development hell, it has to be Hellraiser. The franchise has been looking to return for many a year now, with just about every director in Hollywood attached to it at some point ion the history of its development. A year back, creator Clive Barker pitched a reboot idea to Harvey Weinstein that would reunite the author with his directorial debut in a production job. And if it gets greenlit, we might learn more about the world of Hellraiser.

Speaking to EW, Barker explained that the new Hellraiser would be a  “very loose remake”:

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 [a penal colony] 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.

Lemarchand was one of the few people who managed to communicate with the Cenobites, popping up in Hellraiser IV: Bloodline and shedding some exposition. While I dig the idea of Barker returning, I’m hoping that his script will see new light shed on the Hellraiser universe that hasn’t already been explored.

As for actually directing the film, Barker is keen to return. Eventually:

We’ve got some really cool things coming down the pike. They’re movies which I’m able to watch over as a producer rather than as a director, [but] each time another thing gets added to the rest of the things that we’re doing, I get more tantalized by the idea of actually doing it as a director myself. So, I don’t think I’ll wait too long until I sign on for something myself.

Last Updated: November 3, 2014