The director of 2022’s Hellraiser has discussed the possibility of the movie getting a sequel. The project, which was a Hulu exclusive release directed by David Bruckner, was the eleventh entry in the ongoing Hellraiser franchise, which began with Clive Barker’s original 1987 movie Hellraiser, an adaptation of his novella The Hellbound Heart. The movie followed Riley McKendry (Odessa A’zion) searching for her missing brother Matt (Brandon Flynn) after he vanished when left alone with a mysterious supernatural puzzle box.
ComicBook recently published a quote from David Bruckner about Hellraiser on the week of the movie’s first anniversary. When discussing the possibility of getting back in the director’s chair for a sequel to the movie, which featured Jamie Clayton as iconic Hellraiser villain Pinhead, he revealed he hasn’t heard about any progress on that front. However, he shared that “I certainly hope there’s a future there.” Read his full quote below:
We’ve been wanting to hear from the audience and I don’t know yet, but I certainly hope there’s a future there, so we will see.
Why Hasn’t a New Hellraiser Sequel Been Greenlit?
It’s somewhat surprising that a Hellraiser sequel isn’t already in development, considering the fact that it was one of the best-received Hellraiser movies. Although its 66% percent Rotten Tomatoes score can’t quite match the 70% score of the original, it is still the second highest-rated Hellraiser movie. Hellraiser (1987) and Hellraiser (2022) are likewise the only movies in the franchise to have Fresh ratings on the platform at all.
While it wasn’t necessarily a runaway hit for Hulu, the Hellraiser ending leaves room for a follow-up and the movie’s streaming ratings also showed relatively strong audience interest. According to the Nielsen streaming metrics for the week of its release, Hellraiser was the No. 8 movie of the week with 248 million minutes viewed. It was the only Hulu title on the list whatsoever, and while it dropped off the Top 10 list after one week, no other Hulu title appeared on the list through the end of 2022.
Unfortunately for Hellraiser, the higher-performing franchise movie Prey (which stayed on the chart for three weeks that August) hasn’t been officially greenlit for a sequel either. This could indicate that Hulu isn’t using these streaming chart metrics to drive their decision-making for their genre franchises. It remains to be seen if they agree to produce a sequel to the supernatural horror reboot, but the fact that a year has passed since the original movie isn’t necessarily a good sign.
