It wasn’t too long ago that fans of Mike Mignola‘s supernatural superhero Hellboy all had their hearts broken when director Guillermo del Toro—who directed the original Hellboy and its sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army—went on record and told fans via his Twitter account this bit of bummer news:  “Hellboy 3 Sorry to report: Spoke with all parties. Must report that 100% the sequel will not happen. And that is to be the final thing about it.” Cue Hellboy fans everywhere crying in our cereal.
Well, good news and bad news now, all you Hellboy fans. Bad news: there will never be a third Hellboy film from Guillermo del Toro starring Ron Perlman as “Big Red.” The good news? Comic book creator Mike Mignola has just announced via his Facebook page that Hellboy will indeed return to the big screen, in a new movie reboot from Game of Thrones director Neil Marshall, starring Stranger Things‘ David Harbour.
Shortly after Mignola broke the big news on Facebook, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that the production company Millennium was in negotiations for producing this new reboot with the working title of Hellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen. The film has a script by Andrew Cosby, Christopher Golden, and Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, and longtime publisher of the character Dark Horse Comics will be producing as well.
Now, we can officially say no one saw this news coming. While it is sad that del Toro won’t be directing again, an all-new iteration of Hellboy doesn’t sound so bad. Neil Marshall is a very promising director, and if David Harbour can’t be Cable in the X-Men universe, than I can’t think of a better fit for the character outside of Perlman. And considering the movie has a director and a main star, it means this version is fairly far along in the pre-production phase. So we’ve gone from “no more Hellboy on screen ever” to “Hellboy, coming soon to a theater near you” in record time.
While it’s a bummer than Ron Perlman won’t get the chance to play the character once again, this re-casting just means that Hellboy has joined the upper echelons of the the greatest comic book heroes of all time. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, almost all the most iconic superheroes have had portrayals from different actors at this point. Heck, even the Hulk and Spidey have had three actors play them in less than 15 years. This news just means that Hellboy has joined their ranks.
What do you think of this Hellboy news? Excited about a reboot, or no GDT, no Big Red for you? Be sure to let us know your thoughts down below in the comments.
Images: Dark Horse Comics / Universal Pictures
