Welcome back to Nevermore, where I delve into the fascinating world of films that never got made. Last time I looked at Guillermo Del Toro's scrapped adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness", and this week I'll be looking at another doomed project from one of the most prolific writers in modern horror, Clive Barker. See, back in the 90's Universal were looking to revamp their old classic monster movies (a bit like they are now) and to kick things off, they decided that a mummy movie would be the best bet (again, a bit like now). Here is the story of what happened when Clive Barker was set to helm the project.
Background:
By the early nineties, British horror author and visual artist Clive Barker had made a name for himself as a talented director as well. With the phenomenal Hellraiser, and cult classic Nightbreed under his belt (both adapted from his own works), Barker clearly had a talent behind the camera. When Universal studios sought to remake The Mummy during the 90's, Barker was chosen to helm the project, collaborating on a screenplay with co-writer Mick Garris. With Barker's imagination and keen eye for visual detail, it would seem like the perfect decision to put him in charge of a mummy remake, but unfortunately for him, Universal weren't too fond of his script. So what was it that turned off those studio execs from Barker and Garris' script? Well, this is where it gets interesting..
Plot Details:
Barker's mummy movie would have focused on a director of an art museum who was secretly a cultist, attempting to resurrect the ancient mummies on display. In typical Clive Barker fashion, the film would have been violent and sexually-charged, but there's one particular aspect of the story that really didn't sit well with the producers.
The film would have opened with with a boy-child being born, under circumstances that Barker stated would "suggest that something unnatural is afoot". The narrative would then cut to twenty years later in an American museum where ancient Egyptian artifacts were being brought for a new exhibition. Que the anti-heroine, a beautiful young woman who Barker described as a "seducer and murderer of mysterious origin", who would have seduced the male character throughout the film. Meanwhile there is no sign of the boy-child from the beginning, until the final third of the film when it is revealed that the mysterious woman is the child from the beginning, and made the transition to a woman through surgery and hormones.
Yep, Barker would have pulled a Sleepaway Camp and put a transgender character front and center, without the audience knowing that they were trans. It was certainly an ambitious move from Barker and Garris, and although one can't help but feel like this would have fetishized trans individuals, we'll never really know how Barker would have handled it in the final film. Above is a sketch that Barker shared, of a ghoulish looking mummy that would have appeared in his film.
So What Happened?
The studio were not impressed with Barker's script, using words such as 'perverted' and 'weird' to describe it, which was a really immature move on their part. As well as that, they deemed the script too horrific (god forbid a horror film be horrific) and ultimately it was scrapped altogether. Contrasting "At the Mountains of Madness" last week, there were no budgetary problems with Barker's mummy movie, supposedly it would have been a reasonably low-budget production. It was simply Barker's vision that put the producers off and led them to scrap the project. I mean, what did they expect? Were they even familiar with Clive Barkers work or what?
In 1992, Neil Jordan's The Crying Game was released, a film known now for having a transgender protagonist. The film was an instant success and garnered quite a bit of profit at the box-office, something that Clive Barker found quite amusing considering the circumstances surrounding his mummy movie. Supposedly Barker would send The Crying Game's box-office returns to Universal as a joke, showing them that a film with a trans protagonist could be successful financially.
Other directors were considered after Barker, with names such as Joe Dante and the late George Romero to name a few, but those projects were also unfortunately laid to rest. In the end we got Stephen Sommers' The Mummy in 1999, with Brendan Fraiser and Rachel Weisz in lead roles, and Arnold Vosloo as the titular mummy Imhotep. While it was more of a pulpy action film as opposed to a straight-up horror, it's entertaining nonetheless and remains a cult classic regardless.
Chances of it Ever Getting Made:
It's unlikely that we'll ever get to see Barker's mummy film get made, the closest we have is a few lines of dialogue from his script that were used in Sommers' film. It's a shame because it sounded like a really interesting and unique take on the mummy genre, and could have changed the landscape of Universal's horror films as we know it. Instead we're stuck with Tommy Cruise and the 'Dark Universe' although god knows for how long.
While Barker's film may be entombed for good, it's at least refreshing to see that cinemas attitude towards the transgender community is changing. With films like Tangerine and A Fantastic Woman garnering critical acclaim within the past few years, it's clear that cinema is becoming more progressive in terms of representation. However, from films like last years The Mummy it's also clear that Universal still need to get a grip in terms of monster movies.
So that's it for this weeks installment of Nevermore, next time I'll be looking at an earlier version of a film that actually did get made, albeit a very different film than originally conceived. That'll be up in two weeks time, in the meantime I'll be talking Wes Anderson and continuing the countdown of my 100 scariest horror movie moments so stay tuned for that!
No comments:
Post a Comment