Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s ‘Hellraiser’ remake delayed

I saw the news about this last night when I got home, thought about writing something up and held back. I want to say that the news just gets worse and worse but that I will leave open to interpretation. Here’s the low down…

Yesterday there was word that the remake of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, to be penned and lensed by French duo/hotshots Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, who directed the stunning and brutal À L’Interieur [Inside], which we here at Twitch have been openly affectionate about, was going to be delayed until 2009. The film was to release in September of this year but it has since been moved to an undetermined date in ‘09. That was yesterday.

Today another report came out with an explanation for the date push back. And it all boils down the the Weinsteins. Of course it does. Apparently they weren’t 100% happy with Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s screenplay and have decided to take the film to other writers - so we’re now back at square one. So, what? Do they hate the French now? Our mate Richard over at Filmstalker noted, Now that is strange. I had thought that Clive Barker had been the scriptwriter, and I’m rather amazed that this treatment wasn’t good enough. Perhaps they really are trying to get a better version than the original, and perhaps Clive Barker couldn’t deliver. IMDB credits Clive for the screenplay and the French duo as the writers. Either way this news is open to interpretation and given how fanboys feel about the Weinsteins it is going to be hard for us to accept this as good news. Anyone who has seen À L’Interieur will have a hard time accepting this as positive news.

Sorry. Sorry. I apologize. I’m flying off the handle here. I see the name Weinstein and I start swearing under my breath. Perhaps this is good news. Perhaps I shouldn’t fear the worst or fly off the handle and think that the script may have been too smart or too good to be profitable. Perhaps I shouldn’t be under the impression that the Weinstein’s finally watched À L’Interieur and thought to themselves, ‘Uh oh. This is REALLY good. Too good for the general public if you ask us. We can’t have another film that is too good for the common man’.

I should be hopeful. Right?