Clive Barker has never achieved the raging success in cinema that he has as a celebrated author of horror and fantasy; his debut feature Hellraiser spawned a never-ending franchise that is a classic case of the law of diminishing returns in practice, while follow-ups Nightbreed and Lord of Illusions were either re-cut or mishandled by studio executives who hired the prolific Barker to deliver on screen what came naturally to him on the page only to realize they never understood quite what his fiction was all about, nor did they want to.

But that has not deterred Barker from signing with Amazon Studios, the entertainment content development division of Amazon.com, to rewrite their action-horror film project Zombies Vs. Gladiators.