Actor Odessa A’Zion joins the Hellraiser reboot in the lead role. The horror genre as a whole has been doing quite well with mainstream features like A Quiet Place and The Conjuring universe. This success has revitalized interest in bringing back the classics but reimagining them for a modern audience. IT and The Invisible Man are only a couple examples of how this has been accomplished, although more are on the way. Typically, horror films are made on lower budgets and can generate a healthy profit.

The world of Hellraiser spans 35 years and 10 films. While they were not all theatrical releases, author Clive Barker’s work has truly generated iconic horror that will always be a major inspiration for genre filmmaking. He adapted his own novella to the silver screen, where he wrote and directed the first entry of the franchise. The series ultimately ran through to Hellraiser: Judgement, which was released in 2018. A reboot was announced, which will skip theaters and be dropped on Hulu.

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The Illuminerdi is reporting that A’zion will star in the lead role of the upcoming Hellraiser film. While no official plot details or release date have been released, it has been reported that she will be playing a character named Riley. Previous reports indicated the movie will center around a gender-swapped interpretation of the famous antagonist, Pinhead, but it’s unknown if that is who A’zion is playing. David Bruckner (TheRitual, The Night House) will be directing the reboot of the franchise for Spyglass Media. Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski (The Night House) wrote the screenplay.

The upcoming reboot is not the only content being released in the Hellraiser universe. A television show is in the pipeline with HBO Max, which is being written by Michael Dougherty (Trick ‘r Treat, Godzilla: King of the Monsters) and Mark Verheiden (Battlestar Galactica), while the pilot will be directed by David Gordon Green (Halloween). The Hellraiser franchise tired itself out as the sequels continued to be released, leading to them being direct-to-video movies. Bruckner is a good choice to direct the reboot, although only time will tell if the two projects are able to co-exist or if one will simply overshadow the other.

A’zion is most known for her role as Liv in Nashville. More recently, she played Joey Del Marco in Netflix’s Grand Army. A gender-swapped version of Pinhead is certainly new for the Hellraiser franchise, but this drastic of a change is sure to get backlash from horror fans. That being said, it would be interesting to see what A’zion could bring to the role that is most famously portrayed by Doug Bradley. Since she does not have a long list of credits yet, it is smart to have a fresh face take over the role, allowing her to really transform into this character.

Source: The Illuminderdi

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Jeff Nelson
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Jeff Nelson is a news senior writer for Screen Rant and a film critic for DVD Talk. He has worked in areas of the entertainment industry including film criticism, content acquisitions, and research. He graduated college in 2016 with a Bachelor’s degree in Cinema & Television with an emphasis in Media Management and again in 2019 with a Master’s degree in Sociology. His passion for film began by watching Titanic on repeat as a child until the dual-VHS tapes wore out. While he still loves big Hollywood features, his movie taste expanded to independent filmmaking, foreign, and the horror genre. Each year, he looks forward to seeing the breakout films from the festival circuit. When he isn’t watching or writing about film, Jeff is discovering new music, playing video games, and seeking out unique bars and restaurants to try. Follow Jeff on Twitter @SirJeffNelson.

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