Clive Barker, legendary author of horror stories and director of horror films, has announced on his web site that he’s currently “in talks” to bring his 1990 movie Nightbreed to the small screen. Based on his own 1988 novella, Cabal, the story follows a man named Boone who tries to escape the human world for a secret city of monsters, Midian, after finding out he’s responsible for a series of killings. It would make a pretty groovy addition to the growing number of horror-based TV shows. Barker even gives Twilight a little credit for inspiring him to even start the project. No, really. Twilight. He also talks about progress on possible Abarat movies, as in “more than one of them.”
It’s undeniably a good time for horror fans on television these days, what with shows like AMC‘s The Walking Dead turning out to be so successful. And the Hellraiser director seems to think there is a finally a place for him. On cable, he’ll have even more freedom to go as gory as he wants. In an interview posted on his web site:
“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. …
And this is when he cites Twilight as just one example of the shift in audience attitude:
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…
So, it’s official — monsters are cool again! Clive Barker says so, and he says it’s partly thanks to Twilight! And that’s great, because we also finally found something nice to say about Twilight! That was the end of the talk about Nightbreed, but there was also some interesting news on the Abarat front, including a new book, possibly two, about the continued saga of Candy Quackenbush. He also mentioned a possible movie deal for multiple films. He couldn’t say much, but he did discuss the general state of affairs:
“… I can’t say very much right now but the people involved are very committed to what they’re doing. We’re in active negotiations to make several Abarat movies and I think people will be delighted to hear that the people we’re talking to are people who are good at making these kinds of movies – very large scale, very expensive and very visual and, boy, Abarat is going to be, I think, a very different kind of movie: certainly one thing they have is several hundred pictures as points of reference. These people are good at making these kinds of movies – and it isn’t Disney!!”
So, that’s a lot of great Clive Barker news, especially when you consider the man is recovering from a coma, from which he emerged just a few weeks ago. But he’s back, and he’s ready to make stuff for us.
(Clive Barker via Daily Grindhouse, Blastr)
