While Clive Barker is best known for his creation of the original Hellraiser, his work in television, film, and literature covers virtually every aspect of the magical and fantastic. Now, one of his early novels is in development as a TV series. It’s got young people and supernatural forces at play, so it’s of little surprise that The CW is interested in bringing Weaveworld to the small screen.
According to Deadline, Barker is on board as an executive producer for the adaptation of his 1987 novel of the same name. Jack Kenny, producer on Warehouse 13, will be the lead writer and producer. The show will be updated, and Americanized, for modern television.
The basic premise concerns a young man and woman who learn of a magical realm that can be accessed through a portal in an old woman’s home. They work together to protect the magic world from destruction. While the original novel took place in Liverpool, the old mansion of the series will be located in Savannah, Georgia. There have been some additional modernization updates as well. Our male hero (whose name is Cal in the novel, though we don’t have any character names at this stage) is an app developer, for example. Because nothing says “we’re hip and current” like app development.
There have been a number of attempts to turn Weaveworld into either a film or TV series in the past, and it was most recently considered for a mini-series at Showtime. However, the need for extensive special effects, combined with the fact that Weaveworld is not a major property with a built-in audience, has made the project an expensive one that nobody has been willing to undertake up until now. As shows like CW’s own The Flash have proven, solid special effects on a television budget are no longer out of reach, making the Barker adaptation much more likely.
The interesting thing to keep in mind is that previous attempts at adapting the novel have been focused on creating a mini-series. The story is a single novel without sequels or spinoffs, so while the project may be trying to create a solid adaptation, it looks like they’re planning to continue the story beyond the novel if the series is successful. You can only draw out the events of the book so far. Since Barker is acting as an executive producer, fans can hope that the story will go in a direction that Barker approves of, even if he’s not directly involved in writing it.
Barker has been busy in recent months, with the resurrection of “the closest thing we’ll ever see to the proper version of” Nightbreed and a potential Hellraiser reboot . Hopefully they all turn out successful for him, and for us.
