This may only be interpreted as news by serious horror fans, of which I'm one, but Bloody Disgusting reports that longtime sadomasochist Doug Bradley has been replaced as Pinhead by Stephan Collins in the upcoming sequel, Hellraiser: Revelations. Bradley has become a bit of a cult favorite, having appeared as the pincushion-faced torture artist in all eight of the previous Hellraiser installments.
So does this mean that the Hellraiser franchise is turning over a new leaf and looking to the future? Yes and no. Revelations is another straight-to-dvd sequel, the series' fifth. But Dimenson, the studio that produces the Hellraiser films, has been running around like a chicken with its head cut off looking for talent to put together a reboot of the graphic your-pain-is-my-pleasure franchise. They’re not talking, but you have to wonder if Collins could end up in the reboot too.
News that the studio is going forward with another sequel actually doesn't work against hopes for a reboot: Dimension was in danger of losing rights to the franchise if it didn't pop out another rubik's cube-from hell adventure. That basically means Revelations is a way of keeping the alien race of pain-dealers alive until Dimension gets enough talent for Pinhead and co. to feed off, returning them to full strength. Just like the plot of the 1987 original!
