Much like the ongoing legal battle over who actually owns the original Friday the 13th, writer Victor Miller or director Sean Cunningham, another 1980s horror classic has been in the midst of a less-publicized legal battle in recent months. We’re talking about Hellraiser today, the 1987 horror film written/directed by Clive Barker and based on his own novella.
Long story short, Barker recently sent a notice of termination to producers in an effort to regain the rights to his novella The Hellbound Heart and the horror classic it spawned, enacting the very same Copyright Act of 1976 that Victor Miller enacted in order to regain rights to the original Friday the 13th – a win currently being contested by Cunningham in court.
Under the Copyright Act of 1976 (via THR), “Authors may recapture rights from publishers after waiting a prescribed period (usually 35 years) and sending a notice within a five-year window.”
How did that work out for Barker, you ask? Well, THR reports this morning that Barker “has successfully leveraged copyright law to recapture the American rights to the franchise”!
THR explains, “On Monday, his attorney filed papers in California federal court confirming a settlement with Park Avenue Entertainment, the production company that’s currently enjoying rights to a film about a woman under the sway of a resurrected former lover.”
Barker will gain the *U.S.* rights to Hellraiser beginning on December 19, 2021, and that will include rights to the underlying story and the script for the 1987 film. Anything done with the film franchise post-Hellraiser ’87 is not owned by Barker, similar to the Friday the 13th situation – which is far more of an issue in regards to the Friday franchise because new projects are tough to make when one person owns the original movie and another owns “adult Jason Voorhees” – but new Hellraiser projects beyond 2021 would need Barker’s approval.
Unlike the Friday situation, which has seen Cunningham argue that Miller was a writer-for-hire, nobody can really contest anything of the sort when it comes to Barker/Hellraiser.
This is *HUGE* news for all things Hellraiser, a franchise that has long been pumping out low-quality direct-to-video sequels with no involvement from the man who created the whole franchise and its iconic characters. Pinhead is finally coming back home to Clive Barker, and we already know of two upcoming Hellraiser projects that are currently in the works.
For starters, Barker has most definitely given his approval to a “Hellraiser” series that’s in the works at HBO, as he just came on board as executive producer. David Gordon Green (Halloween Kills) is directing the pilot and “several more initial episodes,” and Michael Dougherty (Trick ‘r Treat) is writing alongside Mark Verheiden (“Battlestar Galactica”).
And then there’s the new Hellraiser movie being directed by David Bruckner (V/H/S, Southbound, The Ritual), written by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski (Super Dark Times). We expect to have more information on that one real soon, so be sure to stay tuned for that.
source https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3643180/clive-barker-regaining-u-s-rights-hellraiser-legal-battle/
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