The team behind the upcoming Hellboy reboot has long been hyping it up as a more gruesome affair than Guillermo del Toro’s two PG-13 contributions to the franchise, and sure enough, it seems that Neil Marshall’s film has now received its R-rating.
The news comes to us from Exhibitor Relations, who’ve said that the movie was issued a more mature rating due to its “strong bloody violence and gore throughout.” It’s not the most surprising news, but it’s nice to get some confirmation that the film won’t receive the same backlash that Venom got last year for going PG-13.
Of course, the fans have still found plenty of reasons to be skeptical about the new Hellboy. For many, the problem is that they can’t imagine anyone but Ron Perlman in the lead after his revered two-movie run under del Toro. Others, meanwhile, were turned off by the film’s first trailer, which took on a surprisingly light and comedic tone that seemed a far cry from the horror-indebted spectacle that many of us were expecting.
Nonetheless, actor David Harbour has continued to hype up Marshall’s feature as a gory work, complete with decapitations and literal bloodbaths, and now that the film has officially received its R-rating, you have to imagine that the movie is still keeping some of its most brutal moments under wraps.
In any case, though neither the fans nor the former cast members of the franchise seem entirely on board with the next Hellboy, there’s still time for the reboot to win over doubters before it arrives in theaters on April 12th, 2019. But first, a new trailer is said to be on the way, and according to Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, this one will be “SO much better” than the last.