Morgan Creek Productions recently made a big announcement to go along with their rebranding as Morgan Creek entertainment group: the production company intended to launch television series based on several of its most famous properties. Inspired by the success of The Exorcist, whose television continuation now airs on Fox, Morgan Creek are aiming to revisit several beloved and iconic properties including Ace Ventura, Young Guns, and Major League.
But horror fans reading that list will likely zoom in on one hot property only: Clive Barker’s wildly imaginative 1990 horror fantasy Nightbreed.
Born out of Barker’s desire to create “the Star Wars of horror films,” Nightbreed follows the bizarre journey of Boone (Craig Sheffer): a young man who, after being framed for murder by his evil psychiatrist (David Cronenberg), is discovers a secret civilization of demonic beings who fear persecution by the human race. Incredibly ambitious for its time, Nightbreed was a labor of love for Barker: the first of what he envisioned as an epic trilogy of films. Doug Bradley, Simon Bamford, and Nicholas Burman Vince – already known for portraying Pinhead and his attendant Cenobites in Barker’s Hellraiser films – co-starred as prominent members of the Nightbreed, and renowned Star Wars concept artist Ralph McQuarrie created elaborate paintings for the film’s sets. (Sheffer and Bradley would eventually reunite in Barker’s universe, costarring in Hellraiser: Inferno many years later.) Unfortunately, Nightbreed crashed and burned at the box office thanks to brutal edits and an indifferent marketing campaign demanded by the studio. Nightbreed enjoys a loyal cult following, however, with various Nightbreed comic books and a recent director’s cut of the film all enjoying a robust audience.
It is important to stress that nothing is official yet. Beyond vague allusions that Barker is involved in a pitch for a Nightbreed television series, Morgan Creek have said nothing. Buzz about the possibility of a Nightbreed series has actually been in the air for a couple of years now with little evidence of traction gained, as explained by The Clive Barker Podcast in their detailed explanation of the recent events.
But Morgan Creek could just as easily have left Nightbreed as an obscure and abandoned product in their vault. For them to mention even the hint of a reboot in the same breath as some of the most well-known franchises of the last few decades is highly significant. Any Nightbreed fan will tell you how the Tribes of the Moon hate and fear the sunlight, but for a true continuation of the film’s surreal story to see the light of day it would be more than worth the risk.
