Clive Barker’s Hotel Finds a Network

Clive Barker

The Hollywood Reporter

Clive Barker’s Hotel, the potential series being guided by Barker, Joe Daley, Warner Bros. TV and McG’s Wonderland Sound and Vision that we told you about last week, has found a home at ABC.

The network picked up the script by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton (of the Saw and Feast series), beating out Fox and others.

The script centers on a series of ghoulish incidents at a haunted hotel. Here’s to hoping someone can bring “horror” back to television. Supernatural is good and all, but the small screen needs a big injection of frights that others have tried and failed at doing.

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Clive Barker Teams With Saw Writers For New Television Horror Series

Clive Barker, Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton

Russ Fischer – SlashFilm.com

On television, the horror anthology will never die. Now, according to the RiskyBiz Blog, Clive Barker is teaming up with Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, the writers of the latter half of the Saw franchise and the recent horror pic The Collector, which Dunstan also directed, to create a new show called Clive Barker’s Hotel. Dunstan and Melton have sold their pitch to Warner Bros. Television, and already networks are looking at it as a potential series.

Dunstan and Melton hooked up with Barker when they worked on one of the many abandoned drafts of the Hellraiser remake (still stuck in development hell) and ended up cooking up the idea for this series, which Barker will produce. RiskyBiz doesn’t have a lot of details, but says the thing “is expected to follow a series of ghoulish incidents at a haunted hotel.” Which is all you really need for a horror anthology. It’s certainly no worse than the basis for the old Friday the 13th series, which had the new owners of an antique shop tracking down the cursed objects they’d sold. (And also landed David Cronenberg as a director for one episode, lest we forget.) I’m also thinking of David Lynch’s brief anthology mini-series for HBO, Hotel Room.

Meanwhile, the Hellraiser remake continues to stall. Having finally seen Martyrs I’m perfectly happy that Pascal Laugier is off the project; I’d still like to see Inside’s Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury have their crack, but that window of opportunity is long closed. Too bad, because as remakes go, Hellraiser is one that has some potential. The original film will always be great (especially as a low-budget outing for the directorially inexperienced Barker) but there’s a lot to do with a new version so long as practical effects were still highlighted in the mix.

Mickey Liddell , executive producer of ‘The Collector’, talks Horror

BRANDY MCDONNELL – The Oklahoman

Director and producer Mickey Liddell relishes that feeling of fear and foreboding he gets from a quality horror movie.

When the Norman native talks about a great fright film, he means one that makes you care about the people running for their lives.

“If I don’t care about the characters, then I don’t really care,” he said during a phone interview from Los Angeles. “I really feel that way about everything that I do … whether it’s a comedy or a horror movie or a television show.”

Director and producer Mickey Liddell

Lately, scares have been at the top of his diverse resume. Last year, Liddell, 47, made his directorial debut with “The Haunting of Molly Hartley,” a teen scare fest. He then became executive producer of “The Collector,” an R-rated serial killer tale from Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, writers of three films (so far) in the gory “Saw” franchise.

“The Collector,” which opened last weekend, follows would-be thief Arkin (Josh Stewart) into a house he intends to rob. When Arkin breaks in, he learns the home already has been invaded by a twisted killer.

The University of Oklahoma grad liked the movie enough to buy it from Dimension Films when the studio consolidated and couldn’t distribute it. He released it through his company, Liddell Entertainment, and Freestyle Releasing, but not before overseeing reshoots to boost the terror quotient.

“Directing made a big difference. … I’m able to look at a movie that has a lot of potential like this one and be able to find the places where we can really make it better,” he said. “Now, it’s really scary.”

He’s next producing “The Details,” a domestic black comedy with Tobey Maguire, Elizabeth Banks and Ray Liotta that starts filming this week in Seattle.

This fall, his company and Roadside Attractions are distributing the Chris Rock documentary “Good Hair,” a festival favorite about the methods black women go through to meet society’s definition of a well-coiffed lady.

He plans to make the teen comedy “The World Belongs to Taylor Nichols” his next directing project, provided he can find time.

Feast writers take on new ‘Saw’ flick

By DAVE MCNARY – Variety

Turns out there is a “Project Greenlight” legacy.

The reality TV series, which plucked Hollywood hopefuls from obscurity to pursue their creative visions, was perhaps more famous for its cringeworthy behind-the-scenes moments than the films it yielded.

But two of its alums, scribes Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, have parlayed their “Feast” script for the show’s final season on Bravo into an impressive genre run.

They penned three “Saw” films for Lionsgate and are the minds behind home-invasion thriller “The Collector,” which is quietly shaping up for a wide 1,350-screen release when it bows July 31 through Freestyle Releasing.

The $3 million project, shot in 19 days and produced by Fortress Features and Imaginarium Entertainment, is also Dunstan’s Hollywood helming debut.

“The exhibitors’ reaction has been a wonderful shock, given that this summer’s dominated by wizards, robots and flying houses,” he admits.

Of course, Freestyle is emphasizing the scribes’ “Saw” connection in its promo push for the pic, in which a handyman ex-con aims to repay a debt to his ex-wife by robbing his new employer’s home.

As for their next steps, the duo’s already working on a “Saw VII” script.

“Will we do a romantic comedy eventually?” Melton asks. “Probably not.”

And the duo still gets recognized for “Project Greenlight,” more than four years after the fact — particularly from aspiring writers.

“Just the other night, a guy recognized us outside the Vista Theater,” Melton notes. “It was our big break and we’re still grateful.” 

The Collector is a true home invasion thriller!

 

Mark Gorelord – GoreMaster News

The Collector,  directed by Feast, Saw IV and Saw V writer Marcus Dunstan, follows the story of handyman and ex-con Arkin (Josh Stewart), who aims to repay a debt to his ex-wife (Daniella Alonso) by robbing his new employer’s country home. Unfortunately for Arkin, a far worse enemy has already laid claim to the property – and the family. As the seconds tick down to midnight, Arkin becomes a reluctant hero trapped by a masked “Collector” in a maze of lethal invention – the Spanish Inquisition as imagined by Rube Goldberg – while trying to rescue the very family he came to rob. Sound like something a few of you may check out?

Producer Mickey Liddell explains: “Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton have come up with a unique twist on the home invasion thriller that we think will have people gripping their seats,” says Liddell. “With its stylized blend of action and horror, the movie delivers on every level.”

Ralis Kahn (Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, Dogma, Progeny, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) is the makeup department head

Gary J. Tunnicliffe (Mission: Impossible II, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Blade, Candyman) is the special makeup effects designer

Claire Jane Vranian (Halloween: Resurrection, My Bloody Valentine, Exorcist: The Beginning) is the special makeup effects administrator

Mike J. Regan (How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Team America: World Police, Men in Black) is the senior makeup effects artist

Frank Ceglia (The Sum of All Fears, Scream, The A-Team, Sorority Row) is the special effects coordinator 

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