Ron Perlman has enjoyed an illustrious career in the movie industry and never seems to be out of work. Despite having his pick of roles, though, the star — recently seen in both Nightmare Alley and Don’t Look Up this past December — remains committed to playing Hellboy again. Perlman portrayed the demon superhero in two cult favorite movies in 2004 and 2008. But, as die-hard fans know, director Guillermo del Toro always intended to make a Hellboy 3.
Unfortunately, dreams of a conclusion to the Hellboy trilogy seemed to die on the vine when Lionsgate released a critically reviled reboot in 2019. Since then, however, Perlman has continued to voice his interest in donning the character’s horns one last time in order to honor what he and his frequent collaborator started nearly 20 years ago. While speaking to The Independent, Perlman held nothing back when explaining why he thinks Hellboy 3 has to happen:
“Am I eager to do Hellboy 3? No, I’m 71 f–ing years old,” he said. “[But] we owe this to the fans and we should give it to them because it would be an epic conclusion. So Guillermo, if you’re reading, I’m not done pounding you to get this f–king thing done.”
Ever since Hellboy II: The Golden Army, fans have been left to wonder what became of Big Red and Liz’s (Selma Blair) unborn twin babies. What’s more, Hellboy is destined to bring about the apocalypse, a dark fate that del Toro has confirmed would have been tackled in a third film. Like Perlman says in his comments above, all the pieces were placed on the board for Hellboy 3 to be an “epic” finale to the franchise. Unfortunately, it ended up being one of the many del Toro projects that the prolific filmmaker never got around to making.
Del Toro’s next project is Netflix’s stop-motion animated adaptation of Pinocchio, which features Ewan McGregor, Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, and — yes — Ron Perlman in its voice cast. That’s hitting streaming this December. After that, Perlman will lend his craggy tones to Paramount’s 2023 live-action blockbuster Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, in which he’ll play Optimus Primal. Hellboy 3, meanwhile, remains stuck in development hell.