It's been a while since we had any news on Spyglass Media's planned "re imagining" of Clive Barker's Hellraiser, but The Illuminerdi has now shared a very interesting casting update.
20-year-old actress Odessa A'Zion (CBS series Fam and Netflix's Grand Army) has reportedly been tapped to play the lead role of "Riley." Though the project is also said to be seeking a female lead to play a gender-swapped take on Pinhead, this is believed to be a different part.
We found out late last year that the filmmaking team behind Sundance Film Festival sensation The Night House had been enlisted to tackle this new take on Barker's story. David Bruckner (V/H/S, Southbound) will direct, while Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski will pen the screenplay. The story is being mapped out by David Goyer.
Barker's 1987 adaptation of his own novella, The Hellbound Heart, introduced one of cinema's most recognizable and enduring movie monsters in Pinhead, the leader of a group of demonic beings known as Cenobites. The movie went on to achieve cult status, spawning multiple inferior sequels, a short-lived TV series, comic books, and more.
Specific details on this new version are still under wraps. but Spyglass has described it as “loyal, yet evolved.” A separate HBO series is also in the works from Halloween (2018) director David Gordon Green.
Bruckner made his directorial debut with the 2007 sci-fi horror film, The Signal, and more recently helmed a few episodes of the Creepshow TV series.
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Mark Cassidy is a writer, photographer, amateur filmmaker, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic from Dublin, Ireland.