Sorry, folks. It looks like a third HELLBOY film is not going to happen. And this time we are getting it from Guillermo Del Toro himself. During a recent AMA session on Ron Perlman saying he wants to make the movie, you would assume the filmmaker who has over a dozen projects in various stages of development gave such a concrete response to the question.
“It’s very unlikely it’ll happen because you need things to converge so strongly. [Producer] Larry Gordon, Universal, the rights, Ron [Perlman’s] and mine’s availability, [comic creator] Mike [Mingola’s] blessing; we have pieces of that, but we don’t have all of that. You need so many things to confluence and then you need about $150 million.”
Currently, Guillermo Del Toro has his new TV series THE STRAIN premiering this weekend on FX, the haunted house movie CRIMSON PEAK in production, and a sequel to PACIFIC RIM coming in just a couple of years. Add to that news that his AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS is back on track, there doesn’t seem to be a time or place for him to even make HELLBOY III. And, with Ron Perlman approaching approaching his mid-60s, the time may be passed.
Still, Del Toro seemed to have been actively thinking of where the third film would have taken the characters and shared some details.
“[T]he 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.”
It is a shame that we will not get the narrative cap to the saga of HELLBOY which may bug fans forever. But, at one point Del Toro said PROMETHEUS was too similar to AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS and that is back on his plate again. So, maybe you shouldn’t give up all hope to see HELLBOY III, just don’t hold your breath.