At the end of the summer, it was reported that Dimension Films had been in talks with Christian E. Christiansen to direct their planned remake of Hellraiser, but that negotiations had ended.

Tonight, the folks over at Bloody Disgusting are reporting that Christiansen (The Roommate) is now confirmed to direct the film, and that the studio wants Amber Heard (Zombieland, The Stepfather) for the female lead.

The site states that they’ve received word that the studio wants to make this version of Hellraiser for “teens,” meaning they’ll be trying for a PG-13 rating. Putting Christiansen at the helm seems to follow this pattern, as he’s just finished up on the PG-13 horror The Roommate, which looks to be like a watered-down teen version of Single White Female.

Yeah, redo Hellraiser as a PG-13 horror film, I’m sure it will be great. Up until now, all reports have been that the studio was trying to be very faithful to the original film, which was based on the novella The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker and had an R rating. Back in January 2009 Pascal Laugier had been signed on to write and direct the new movie, and had promised to do right by Barker’s tale, and planned to use his bigger budget to achieve the things Barker couldn’t have with his limited budget when he directed the original 1987 film. Things were hopeful for this remake, but with this new information coming out, it looks like we’ll be getting just another simplified horror movie for the kiddies. It’s bad enough the film is getting needlessly remade, but to make it ‘teen-friendly’? It just makes no sense. But, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised, since the Hellraiser film franchise had been run into the ground with awful direct-to-DVD sequel for years. We’ll see how long this remake languishes in development hell.