As a kid, I got my hands on a tabloid and read an article within about a horror movie in which a mother literally journeys through Hell to rescue her abducted child. The events and imagery the filmmakers brought to the screen to represent Hell was said to be so intense and terrifying that the movie was being banned in some territories. The article writer played the film up almost to the level of the movie at the center of John Carpenter's CIGARETTE BURNS, as if watching it was an experience that humans just couldn't handle. I don't remember what this movie was called, who made it, where it came from (I think it was a European production). This was in the days before the internet, so I couldn't just look it up at the time, I had to take the article's word, so I don't even know if the movie actually exists. But ever since then, I have been fascinated by the idea of a movie about a character on a mission in a cinematic Hell that is so frightening it's too much for most viewers to bear.
Being a major studio, I doubt Warner Bros. will go that far with it, but they have just purchased a DANTE'S INFERNO pitch from screenwriter Dwain Worrell. "Inferno" was the first part of Dante Alighieri's 14th century poem "Divine Comedy", and Worrell's pitch is based on the epic love story at its core:
Dante descends through the nine circles of Hell to save the woman he loves.
Warner Bros. is said to be excited by the project's scale and franchise potential. Gianni Nunnari's Hollywood Gang and Akiva Goldsman's Weed Road will produce.
This take on DANTE'S INFERNO may not be quite the nightmarish experience I've been daydreaming about for more than twenty years, but because of that article I read the concept of a character going through actual Hell is one that will always catch my interest.
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