'Hellraiser' TV Series Brings Creator Clive Barker On Board As Executive Producer

The Hellraiser TV series is bringing back a familiar face, and I don't mean Pinhead. Clive Barker, the original Hellraiser filmmaker and creator, is now on board as an executive producer for the HBO Hellraiser TV series being directed by David Gordon Green (Halloween). And it sounds like Barker will have actual involvement with the project and not just an honorary producer credit.

Okay, let me tell you an inside secret about executive producers: sometimes they don't do anything. To be clear, a lot of executive producers are hands-on with films or TV shows, often bringing in money for a project and taking part in development. But then there are honorary executive producers. These are folks who really don't have much to do with the movie or film their name is attached to. Instead, they might have had some association with the material at one point, and are being given credit (and a paycheck) as payback.

Or, as screenwriter John August puts it:

Many TV shows have multiple executive producers, and without knowing the specific situation, it's hard to say what the individual people do. For instance, a TV show derived from a movie (like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"), may bring with it Executive Producers from the original film, who have little direct involvement with the show.

With that in mind, whenever a famous name gets bandied about as an "executive producer," I tend to be a little skeptical because there's a good chance that said person isn't really working on the project at hand. But in the case of Clive Barker joining the Hellraiser show, it certainly sounds like Barker will at least have some input into the material.

Per Deadline, Barker is now part of the executive producer team on the Hellraiser show, with Barker saying he is "delighted the Hellraiser mythology is seeing a new life. It's time the stories went back to their roots. I'm eager to bring to a new audience the most powerful and ancient elements of horror: the darkest evil invading our human lives and how we must find in ourselves the power to resist it."

The early episodes of the show will be directed by David Gordon Green, director of Halloween, and the upcoming Halloween Kills, while Mark Verheiden (Battlestar Galactica) and Michael Dougherty (Trick r' Treat) serving as writers, and Verheiden running the show. As for what the show is about – all we know is that it's "planned as an elevated continuation of the existing Hellraiser mythology," whatever that means!

In the original Hellraiser, a puzzle-box opened up a gateway to a hellish dimension (letter clarified to just be Hell itself in the sequel) full of monstrous S&M freaks known as Cenobites.