The Hellraiser reboot on Hulu is getting a lot of attention for a lot of different reasons, but one of those is the pedigree of the director. David Bruckner has directed a number of horror movies, and for a time, he was attached to a Friday The 13th reboot movie.
In a recent interview with ComicBook.com, he touched on what that experience was like and how he feels about the franchise eventually coming back. The original concept for the reboot would have been a movie set in the ’80s, based on found footage, but it wasn’t meant to be.
“I think for me, personally, it would be hard to find my way back into that now just because it’s like the actor’s approach to an audition, you have to just walk away at a certain point and put it behind you,” he said.
He “spent a lot of time there” and “worked with some wonderful writers” but Bruckner said he’s since changed and moved on. “Those ideas aren’t interesting to me quite the same way they were with the work we did in particular, but I’m a fan of the franchise.”
One of the things Bruckner said he’s uniquely aware of is how a classic horror franchise belongs to everybody, not the director.
“I think if you’re working on IP, whether it be Hellraiser or Friday the 13th, this doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to everybody. This is not the ultimate Hellraiser movie, it is one Hellraiser movie.”
So what about another Friday the 13th? Will we get one?
“There will be others, there will be other Friday the 13th films. They will figure it out, the IP is too valuable. The fans want it too much. So no, I’ll be the first person in theater to figure out what they did. Of course, I’ll think a lot about what we had, but no, and it goes the same for any of the stuff that we work on; I’m game, as long as I get to keep making stuff that I’m passionate about, I’ll be as grateful as I can be.”
While he’s not making a new version of the movie, he did explain what one would look like in an interview back in 2016 with Hitflix.
“It was a proper ‘end of the summer’ summer camp movie that took place in the late ’80s…I like to say that Dazed and the Confused was a huge inspiration to me in how we approached the character relationships, just because that’s a movie that captures a kind of a timeless – even though it takes place in the ’70s – a very timeless, nostalgic experience. And it’s very much – you chart several characters at once, it’s very much an ensemble piece, and you really are able to get at this coming of age vibe. I just wanted to see a movie where you’re that invested in everybody and [then] Jason Voorhees [shows up].”
Oh, what could have been. Hellraiser debuts on Hulu tomorrow. You can read our review here.