Hellboy, get ready for your close-up, again – things just might be a little different this time. Previously, we reported that director Guillermo Del Toro’s efforts to launch a third big-screen Hellboy, along with actor Ron Perlman, were dead. And they still appear to be. However, Millennium – along with producers Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin – look be attempting to reboot the venerable cult comic book character for new film project. The Hollywood Reporter was on hand to provide some context.
Instead of Del Toro (whose new film, The Shape of Water hits screens later this year), directing duties may belong to Neil Marshall. Marshall, television veteran who has commanded top-tier genre properties like Game of Thrones, Westworld and Hannibal in recent year, also helmed the well-regarded 2005 horror entry The Descent. As for the star, it appears that Stranger Things breakout David Harbour (previously rumored to be in the running to portray Cable in Deadpool 2) is the top choice to play the cantankerous horned demon.
The project, going by the working title Hellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen, comes with a screenplay penned by Andrew Cosby, Christopher Golden and original Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. It’s unclear, at least as of now, as to what the central plot of the project may be. The cult comic creation originated form Mignola in the early 1990s and centered on a demon, one raised by a professor, who fought and lead a charge against supernatural Big Bads for an agency called the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.
The genesis of transferring the character to the big-screen has been an interesting one to chart, dating back to when Del Toro’s first Hellboy film hit theaters in the spring of 2004. That first film, financed through Revolution Studios and distributed via Sony, did respectable business but hardly broke the bank – the film did earn respectable cred for Del Toro’s visual bedazzlement and Perlman’s playful performance. Four years later came a sequel – Hellboy 2: The Golden Army – which reunited Del Toro and Perlman. That film was released by Universal Pictures, but struggled at the box office due to the unfortunate case of opening just a week prior to Christopher Nolan’s massive The Dark Knight.
If Hellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen does indeed launch, it would mark the third film attempt from a third distributor. We shall stay tuned.
Mignola broke the news, taking to Facebook to announce the exciting development.
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