Mike Mignola, the founding father of Big Red (AKA Hellboy), believes Lionsgate and Neil Marshall’s hardcore movie reboot will be overly faithful to the original comics.
While drumming up hype for “Koschei the Deathless #3,” the industry veteran spoke to Entertainment Weekly about Hellboy’s imminent return, and why Marshall (The Descent) and Stranger Things actor David Harbour are bringing something new to the table, which ought to allay any fears that the creative duo was about to retread the same territory as Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman – the double act responsible for Hellboy and its sequel, The Golden Army.
Mignola has also adopted a slightly different role this time around, too, as the scribe told EW:
It’s funny, because my involvement has been very different than the Del Toro movies. The difference is I had known Del Toro for six years by the time we did the first movie. Neil I met a couple months before he worked on the movie. It was very different, but I have been involved ever since they said ‘Hey we’re gonna make another Hellboy movie, and we’re gonna do this story.’ I’ve bounced back and forth with them about how to adapt this particular Hellboy story.
He continued:
At various times I’ve jumped in and been much more active in the screenplay than I ever was on the Del Toro movies. But I did nothing so far as design stuff on the movie. Guillermo wanted me as a concept artist, but on this movie, there were other concept artists. I came in and I looked at some stuff, but they were trying to do something so close to what’s on the comics that they really leaned on what had been done by Duncan [Fegredo] and me in the comics.
Hellboy pummels his way back into theaters on January 11th, 2019, and lead star David Harbour hopes the end product is cut from the same cloth as Deadpool and Logan – two comic book adaptations that broke new ground for R-rated movies.