Hello, and happy Sunday! Welcome back to Horror Happenings. There’s lots of scary news spinning this week friends so let’s get to it!

New Pinhead Actor Revealed

There has been a lot of Hellraiser news making its way to the interwebs over the last month since Hellraiser: Judgement was announced and began casting. Makeup artist Gary Tunnicliffe is hard at work on his Hellraiser movie, a long term passion project, and he has promised fans a plethora of new Cenobites to scare them into oblivion. One of the important things we recently learned, however, is that franchise regular Doug Bradley would not be reprising his role as Pinhead. For many fans, there may be no Hellraiser without Pinhead, but Tunnicliffe assured audiences that the actor he cast in the role was “a classically trained stage and film actor who brings a great physical presence.” This week Bloody Disgusting has reported that it would be Paul T. Taylor, best known for roles in Sin City and James Gunn‘s dark superhero dramedy Super. And, as Nerdist reported a few weeks back, A Nightmare on Elm Street scream queen Heather Langenkamp will have a cameo, as well.

Everything I’ve been seeing about this new Hellraiser movie sounds like it’s coming from a place of love and will be filled with visceral, graphic imagery very close to the spirit of Clive Barker‘s original. While it may be a drag to some fans that Bradley won’t be back, I think the new film is incredibly promising. How about you? Is Bradley’s absence a deal breaker or are you looking forward to a fresh take on the universe? Tell us in the comments!

Eli Roth Departs Giant Shark Movie Meg

Well this is disappointing news: Knock, Knock and The Green Inferno director and friend of Nerdist Eli Roth is no longer attached to direct the giant shark movie adaptation of the best seller Meg. Deadline is reporting that Roth has exited the film due to Meg‘s studio Warner Bros. looking to cut the budget of the film and rewrite the script to reflect those changes. This was supposed to be Roth’s first studio movie and many were excited that he would be the one to bring the story of the Megalodon to the big screen. After all, just a few months ago Roth described his take on the movie by saying, “When I met with the studio I basically said, ‘You know Pac-Man eating dots? Well the shark is Pac-Man and the dots are people.’”

The project has been in development for the big screen since Disney first purchased the rights in 1997. Now that Roth is out, it’s looking like National Treasure director John Turtletaub is coming in. While the books premise revolved around the shark attacking people up and down the California coast, due to a new financial partner coming out of China, it appears that one of the rewrites requested will move the setting to Asia instead.

We’ll keep you posted on new Meg details as they become available!

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Image Credits: DeviantArtist Nick-Percival

Clarke Wolfe writes Horror Happenings for Nerdist every Sunday. You can follow her on Twitter @clarkewolfe.