Back in 2004, Guillermo Del Toro–the master of practical monsters and the one-time director-of-choice for ‘The Hobbit’ franchise–made a startlingly fun feature adapting Mike Mignola’s mythologically dense ‘Hellboy’ comicbooks onto film. The movie had snappy dialogue, had killer visuals (the God-monsters frozen and floating through space? YES, PLEASE MORE), and had characters with a lot of heart and a lot of room to grow. ‘Hellboy II: The Golden Army’ offered a world as striking and as rich as Mignola’s own comicbooks, with some truly incredibly monsters brought to life by Del Toro’s wizardly puppetry. Both films were moderate successes at the box office, but failed to return the kinds of cash that draw studios into franchise frenzies. Still, the ‘Hellboy’ fandom has grown restless since the release of ‘Hellboy II’ back in 2008. So too, it seems has Del Toro himself.
In a recent Reddit AMA, Del Toro gets down to brass tacks about both the possibility of a ‘Hellboy 3’ and elements of the would-be plot:
Well, you know, we don’t have that movie on the horizon, but the idea for it was to have Hellboy finally come to terms with the fact that his destiny, his inevitable destiny, is to become the beast of the Apocalypse, and having him and Liz face the sort of, that part of his nature, and he has to do it, in order to be able to ironically vanquish the foe that he has to face in the 3rd film. He has to become the best of the Apocalypse to be able to defend humanity, but at the same time he becomes a much darker being. It’s a very interesting ending to the series, but I don’t think it will happen.
According to Del Toro, studios cite a lack of certainty in DVD and home video markets as the main reason ‘Hellboy 3’ won’t be an option, and since both previous films made their biggest bucks in DVD players across the world, studios aren’t eager to get into bed with Big Red anytime soon.
Instead, we’re all left to imagine a world in which Del Toro finances the film himself and completes the pretty bad-ass-sounding story on his own. Read the full AMA for more Del Toro talk.
Who has read the ‘Hellboy’ comics? Any plot lines you’d love to see up on the big screen?
via Screenrant