With the release of HELLBOY quickly approaching, we'll finally be able to see how it stacks up to Guillermo del Toro's previous two HELLBOY movies. There will certainly be differences, as the upcoming reboot has been touted as a "darker, more horror version of Hellboy," but a new featurette for HELLBOY finds the cast and crew expressing just how loyal the film will be to Mike Mignola's comics.
Like many of you, I'm still on the fence in regards to the new film, but I'm more than willing to give it a shot due to my great love for the character (who just celebrated his 25th anniversary in comics) and the fantastic world which Mike Mignola has created. Our own Paul Shirey visited the set of HELLBOY last year, so be sure to check out his interviews with star David Harbour and director Neil Marshall, as well as a rundown of everything he learned from the set. During Shirey's interview with Harbour, the actor was asked how different his Hellboy is compared to what's come before. "I would say, is that in the original “Hellboy” movies, I feel like you know, he’s very much a guy that has a sense of humor and goes about his job and does his thing and sort of deals with the demons and the evil in the world. And in our movie, he’s very much dealing with his own being ostracized from society," Harbour said. "There is kind of a Frankenstein element to it. There’s, I think a lot more self-hatred. You know, although those movies did explore certain aspects of that, ours is just a lot darker in terms of a character piece, in terms of like, who he is. Like he’s a much more tortured guy, who in the end, has to do the right thing."
The official synopsis for HELLBOY:
Hellboy is back, and he’s on fire. From the pages of Mike Mignola’s seminal work, this action packed story sees the legendary half-demon superhero (David Harbour, “Stranger Things”) called to the English countryside to battle a trio of rampaging giants. There he discovers The Blood Queen, Nimue (Milla Jovovich, Resident Evil series), a resurrected ancient sorceress thirsting to avenge a past betrayal. Suddenly caught in a clash between the supernatural and the human, Hellboy is now hell-bent on stopping Nimue without triggering the end of the world.
HELLBOY will hit theaters on April 12, 2019.