Amazon Studios has tapped iconic horror novelist and filmmaker Clive Barker to rewrite Zombies vs. Gladiators, a genre mash-up built around a Roman gladiator’s quest to defeat an history’s first ever zombie apocalypse.

Barker said:

I’m excited by the opportunity to interweave two very rich narrative threads. One of them concerns itself with the reality of the decadence of Rome and its rise and fall. The other is a fantastical narrative element—the living dead.

My brief to myself on this project is to give the audience not only zombies they have never seen before but also a Rome they have never seen before.

Barker, of course, is the author of such horror classics as “The Hellbound Heart,” the novella that inspired Hellraiser, “Damnnation Game,” “Weaveworld,” “The Thief of Always,” “Imagica,” “Cabal,” on which the 1990 film Nightbreed was based on and “The Books of Blood” anthologies.

On the big screen, he’s written, directed and/or produced the must-see frighteners Dread, Midnight Meat Train, Book of Blood, Lord of Illusions, Rawhead Rex, Nightbreed, Candyman and Hellraiser I-III.

Amazon Studios launched in November 2010. It is the movie producing arm of Amazon.com.