Posted by Kirk in Director, Horror, In the Works, Monsters, Remakes | 5 comments
‘Martyrs’ Director Tapped for ‘Hellraiser’ Remake
Negotiations are underway for Pascal Laugier to write and direct the remake to ‘Hellraiser’ for Dimension Films. Â Laugier has gained much acclaim in the horror genre recently. Â His film, ‘Martyrs’, has become one of the most talked about horror films on the festival circuit.
“This is a dream project for me,” Laugier said. “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.”
Dimension has been working on re-imagining ‘Hellraiser’ for quite some time. Â At first, Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo (‘Inside’) were tapped to write and direct, but they were subsequently taken off the project. Â After that, Marcus Dunstand and Patrick Melton (‘Saw IV’ and ‘Saw V’) were brought on board to write the script. Â That, too, didn’t pan out.
The ‘Hellraiser’ remake is tentatively scheduled for a 2009 release.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
I have a couple things to say about this, besides the obvious “this doesn’t need a remake comment.” 1. Thank the gods the writers of Saw were taken off of this film. I might have had to kill somebody. 2. I don’t like the sounds of a 2009 release when you just nailed down a director. A rushed movie is almost always a bad movie. It just goest to show, these people aren’t interested in making a good film as much as they are interested in pumping out another money-maker. I’m not saying this “Martyrs” director can’t do a good job… I’m just saying the odds of him doing a good job in such a short time frame are really not on his side.
A full year, however, doesn’t seem like such a short period of time, especially when you’re considering a film whose established storyline has already been told. I think a decent screenplay and film could be cranked out by Halloween ’09.
I guess I may have been a little hasty when making that call. A full year is a decent amount of time. I suppose with 2009 seemingly right around the corner it just was a little shocking to imagine a 2009 release. They could probably shoot the movie very quickly… it’s the writing and the casting I hope they take their time on. The Hellraiser series has reached such a low point in the last few installments, I get a little sensitive thinking about what they might do to it now.
On that, I couldn’t agree more.
It’s kind of sad, really.
I heard that Barker was heavily involved with the original script, and very excited about what they had come up with.
Since then, I haven’t heard anything out of that camp.
Not a good sign, but I’m willing to give it a go for the sake of the original and Hellbound.