While 2019’s Hellboy reboot definitely didn’t open the door for a franchise, Millennium Media is going to try again, with Deadline announcing Hellboy: The Crooked Man, which the company hopes will be the franchise starter the last movie wasn’t. This Hellboy reboot is set to be directed by Brian Taylor, formerly half of the directing team Neveldine/Taylor. As a pair, the directors helmed the Crank movies (as well as Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, which star Nicolas Cage remains a fan of), while Taylor, on his own, directed the pretty decent horror flick, Mom and Dad.
Deadline reports that the new film is set to be written by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola himself, alongside frequent collaborator Chris Golden. The pair will be adapting their own graphic novel, “Hellboy: The Crooked Man,” which was a prequel set in the fifties. As per Deadline’s description:
The new film will see Hellboy and a rookie BPRD agent stranded in 1950s rural Appalachia. There, they discover a small community haunted by witches, led by a local devil with a troubling connection to Hellboy’s past: the Crooked Man. In the comic, The Crooked Man was an eighteenth-century miser and war profiteer named Jeremiah Witkins who was hanged for his crimes yet returned from Hell as the region’s resident Devil.
One guy who’s unlikely to return is David Harbour. The actor has been open in the years following the 2019 reboot about his disappointment with what was apparently a fraught production. As he said recently, “I learned not to f*ck with established IP, that’s for sure. A beloved and established IP. I mean, I guess that’s the biggest lesson learned. I feel like whatever failures or successes that movie was, of which there are many, the movie itself had such a thing going into it that it was like almost impossible.” Harbour would likely be unavailable anyway, with him set to shoot Stranger Things season five, as well as his new Marvel movie, Thunderbolts. It’s unlikely he would ever welcome the chance to reprise the role, given that he apparently keeps a photo of himself as the character in his closet as a reminder to be humble.
Hellboy is not the only franchise Millennium is trying to relaunch, with them having wrapped Expendables 4, which is said to focus on Jason Statham’s Lee Christmas, while they also have the Red Sonja adaptation coming.
Are. You excited for a new Hellboy reboot? Let us know in the comments!