After a running series of progressively inferior sequels Dimension Films announced in 2006 that they planned on rebooting the slowly flagging Hellraiser franchise; a move which was welcomed by fans of Clive Barkers' original movie. French director Patrick Laugier was attached to direct the project which promised to breathe fresh life into the property with a darker, more serious tone than that which had been seen in the poorly recieved sequels, but Dimension Films founder Bob Weinstein's desire for the movie to appeal to a teen audience quickly paid heed to the project.
Four years later in 2010, Terminator: Genisys co-writer and director of movies such as Dracula 2000 and The Prophecy 3: The Ascent, Patrick Lussier collaborated with his then partner Todd Farmer on another attempt to reboot the Hellraiser franchise with a movie which planned to explore the origins of the LeMarchand Configuration AKA the puzzle box, but the following year, even after producing man concepts for the movie (pictured above), the project had again fallen apart, forcing Dimension Films, in a bid to retain production rights to the Hellraiser franchise, to fast track production on Hellraiser: Revelations - which replaced Doug Bradley with Fred Tatasciore as Pinhead, the franchises antagonist. The movie is universally considered by fans and critics as the worst in the series.
Despite Fred Tatasciore's best efforts, his face and head did not compliment the iconic Pinhead makeup!
Thankfully, in 2013 creator, writer, producer and director of the 1987 original (based uppon his novella the Hellbound Heart), Clive Barker, pitched a darker, deeper retelling of the original movie to Weinstein under the condition that Doug Bradley return in the movies titular role as the Cenobite high preist Pinhead. Now almost a year later, in a lengthy interview with EW in which Barker talks about his recent brush with death and the recent release of the Nightbreed Directors Cut, the prince of horror mentions that he has recently submitted a second draft of a screenplay for his Hellraiser reboot, of which he also hopes to direct...
“I think the phrase is ‘reboot,’ although I’ve never really understood what that meant,” he says. “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.”
Ashley Laurence is old enough now to play the evil, venomous Julia!
If the movie, like the original, is to tell of the Cotton family's dealings with the LeMarchand / Lament Configuration it would be an interesting move to cast Ashley Lawrence, whom played Kirsty Cotton in the 1987 original, in the venomous role of stepmother Julia, formerly played by Clare Higgins. That said with actor Doug Bradley having just celebrated his 60th birthday, maybe a planned, well-thought-out recasting for the role of Pinhead is in order, with an actor capable of playing the character for the foreseable future, and of whose head and face compliment the prosthetic make up as much as Bradleys did.
