Adam Green and Joe Lynch had Patrick Lussier on The Movie Crypt as a guest and the writer/director offered some interesting insight into what might have become of the Hellraiser remake that he and Todd Farmer were commissioned to write (Lussier would have been at the helm if their screenplay had gone into production). As is often the case with projects of this kind, it never got off the ground but Lussier definitely had some interesting things to say about what might have been.
“We wanted to make another movie with [William] Fichtner (Drive Angry),” Lussier said. “Imagine two posters… Imagine Bill Fichtner on one in black combat gear, like tactical gear… He’s got a gun in his hand and he’s got three big fuckin’ nails hammered into his forehead that are dripping blood and he’s holding something in his hand, and the poster just says, ‘Rabbit.’ Then [for the second poster, it would be Fichtner’s] hand and he’s holding the box and the [poster would read], ‘Rabbit Hole,’ and that’s it.”
“The idea essentially was that we never see the story of Frank getting the box. So imagine if Frank is actually the darkest version of [24’s] Jack Bauer and [the] Nicolas Cage [character] from National Treasure. It would have been the evil National Treasure story.”
“In the beginning [Frank] is going to get the box, and he’s in Shanghai. He gets caught and they [the captors] hold him down and they hammer these f**king nails into his head, but he gets free and kills everyone. But he does get the box which is being held by this guy who looks like he’s all bloated and has been ripped apart by the Cenobites. Frank steals the box and then… bad things happen.”
Lussier also went on to explain that Fichtner’s character would eventually have become Pinhead. He also revealed that it was the poster idea that got him and frequent collaborator Todd Farmer the gig writing the script for The Weinstein Company in the first place. Lussier also told Green and Lynch that Clive Barker was never involved with the remake (at least when he and Farmer were attached) and he also went on to say that there was a version of the script that featured a Doug Bradley cameo but it wasn’t until the end of the film.
