I think it’s fair to say that we were all pretty shocked yesterday when news of a Hellboy reboot broke out. Don’t get us wrong, we’re definitely excited to see Red back on the big screen, but after Guillermo del Toro announced that he wouldn’t be making a third film in his series, as was previously rumored (read: hoped for), many fans figured that was it for the character. At least, as far as cinema goes.
But alas, Hellboy is coming back for more. This time, however, he’s got a different creative team to help guide him into theatres. Rebooting the property will be director Neil Marshall, with a script from Andrew Cosby and David Harbour stepping in to play the titular hero. It’s a strong trio of talent, to be sure, and with an R rating in mind, this new spin on the character will surely be quite different than what we saw before.
That’s something which Cosby emphasized in a recent interview with Silver Screen Beat, saying that the reboot will be “darker” and “more gruesome” than del Toro’s films.
“I can’t really talk about specifics with regard to the story, which they’re keeping a pretty tight lid on at the moment, but I can say that this is a darker, more gruesome version of Hellboy. Neil said from the very beginning that he wanted to walk a razor’s edge between horror and comic book movie, which was music to my ears, because that’s what I was shooting for in the script, and precisely what Mignola does so well with the comics.”
While a third outing in the original series is still preferred over starting from scratch like they’re doing here, this project is definitely sounding promising so far. With an R rating, the filmmakers will be able to go to places that del Toro couldn’t with his efforts and given the current cinematic climate, where R-rated comic book movies are all the rage, something like this could very well prove to be a big hit.
As a huge fan of the character, I’ll say that this is all very exciting. Yes, it does mean that del Toro will never get to make a third Hellboy, but the property returning to the big screen can only be a good thing and as mentioned above, the people being brought in to make it happen are certainly talented individuals. We’ll continue to keep a close eye on this one as it develops, but as of now, you can color us optimistic.