Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story

going to talk about the Lord of Illusions series, the Harry D'Amour TV series which is going to come from MGM. We have Saint Sinner which is a show I'm doing for the Sci-Fi Channel - it's not based on the comic. '

Revelations : 'Oh, it's not?'

CB: 'No, I just love that title! We'll probably start shooting that towards the end of this year. We have a script for a movie called Bloody Mary which will be turned into us next week, which is a story which we found, actually, in the pages of a Miami newspaper and just loved, I don't want to tell too much more about that. It's a pretty hard-core horror story. And then Warner Brothers, as you know, are doing Damnation Game.'

Revelations : 'Yeah, we started seeing some big names attached to that, some very big names.'

CB: 'So did I, I don't know where they came from -1 assume those names came from Warner Brothers.'

Revelations : 'They made us worry for the film, and certainly for the story.'

CB: 'They worried you? They worried me! I think at one point I saw Paul Newman and I saw Sean Connery, who else did you see?'

Revelations : 'Certainly those were the two big ones...'

CB: 'Yeah, I don't think either of them are very likely, frankly! We have a $45 million movie here!'

Revelations : 'It's just not going to happen, is it. We saw Dame Maggie Smith and Kim Basinger also looking for roles in it.'

CB: 'I don't know where either of those people could fit in the movie, do you?'

Revelations : 'No -1 can't see it, Oh, I guess I can see Kim Basinger if she's gone downhill a bit!'

CB: 'Right! But it's really hard to see where these things come from. Obviously somebody's given some thought to this - it isn't just names pulled out of a bag.'

Revelations : 'Yeah, because this cropped up in a few places'

CB: 'I completely agree, it was a weird thing. Weird... We still have high hopes for Weaveworld, but, y'know...'

Revelations : 'You've always had high hopes for Weaveworld, but y'know...'

CB: 'But, y'know!'

Revelations : 'We've had that on the site for so long under a title...'

CB: '...that says 'Pending.' '

Revelations : '..it's got the Monty Python quote from The Search For The Holy Grail which says this is in danger of making Ben Hur look like an epic...'

CB: 'Yes, exactly - that's exactly right! But we've got lots going on, as you can hear; we will take Thief of Always out... Oh and Ectokid, the comic, has just been sold to Nickelodeon, the movie - which I will produce, so we have Ectokid, Abarat at Disney...'

Revelations : 'What's happened since Peter Schneider's gone? Was he the great champion for that?'

CB: 'Which is regrettable - he was a good guy - but there's a lot of good guys there and our... we've had no bad experiences there so far, they've been really super, so I'm cautiously optimistic that it's all going to work out well. And the book I'm incredibly excited about. I am coming within 2 weeks of finishing the book and in a way, the thing it will remind you most of will be Weaveworld, because it has a wild imagination and it has great villains and it has some big ideas floating around in it, you know?'

Revelations : 'Is it like Weaveworld would have been if you'd kept Cal as a little boy?'

CB: 'Yes! Well, Candy is 15 just going on 16, so she's not little little... There's 300 [Abarat]paintings here, man.'

Revelations : 'Are they not in Disney's vault yet?'

CB: 'No, I'm saving them for you! I guarantee, and I'm not joking about this, I guarantee that when you come in and you see these pictures your view of who I am will change instantly - there will be one big change where you will go, 'Oh. My. God...!''

About the Author

Clive Barker is the bestselling author of eighteen books, as well as an acclaimed artist, film producer, and director. He lives in Beverly Hills, California with his lover and life-partner, the photographer David Armstrong, in a canyon that the readers of this novel would quickly recognize.

Credits

Jacket photograph by David Armstrong Jacket design by Roberto De Vicq de Cumptich Designed by Joseph Rutt

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