Even by the standards of modern Hollywood, rebooting one of the worst reboots of all-time a mere four years after it cratered at the box office and found itself torn to shreds by critics seems misguided, but Hellboy: The Crooked Man is already gearing up to finalize casting and begin production.
Not only that, but the third attempt at landing Big Red a franchise that doesn’t implode before it’s even gotten the chance to find its feet is already being planned as the first in a multi-film series, according to Deadline. One sliver of light is that creator Mike Mignola will be co-writing the script, but that doesn’t make it any easier to try and get excited for yet another Hellboy reboot.
In an ideal world, Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman would have wrapped up their trilogy, but instead we had Neil Marshall and David Harbour step in for an R-rated fantasy actioner so bad the leading man has made a point of apologizing for it several times since its initial release.
Whoever steps into those gigantic shoes stands a decent chance of drinking from a poisoned chalice, meaning we’ll be very interested to see who ends up signing on the dotted line to play the title role. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance director Brian Taylor will be calling the shots in some less-than-exciting news from behind the camera, but then again, maybe we’ll all end up being blown away by The Crooked Man.
On the other hand, we’ve been down this suspiciously familiar road very recently, and the destination was less than ideal.