Classic horror 'Hellraiser' to be made into a series at HBO

Hellraiser is on its way to the small screen, thanks to US network HBO.

The original series of movies, 10 in all, spun off from the novella The Hellbound Heart, penned by Clive Barker in 1986.

The first movie, Hellraiser, arrived a year later, with Doug Bradley underneath the startling make-up as supernatural torturer-in-chief 'Pinhead'.

According to Variety, the series will not be a reboot but 'an elevated continuation and expansion' of the source material.

Read more: The greatest ever horror sequels

It will also be unrelated to a planned big screen revival from David S. Goyer, writer of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, which was announced last year.

Mark Verheiden and Michael Dougherty will be penning the series, having previously worked on the likes of Battlestar Galactica and Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

Pineapple Express director David Gordon Green and Danny McBride, who run Rough House Pictures, and who successfully rebooted the Halloween series last year, will be producing the show, with Gordon Green also set to direct.

Though it divided critics, the first Hellraiser movie was a modest hit, making $14.6 million from its $1 million budget.

While Barker directed the first film himself, the following nine movies delivered diminishing returns.

Hellraiser: Judgement is the most recent, released in 2018, and the second not to feature Bradley as Pinhead. It made $405,000 at the box office.