Hellboy: The Crooked Man director says reboot will be an R-rated folk horror movie

After the failure of the last Hellboy reboot, Millennium Media is giving the fan-favourite comic-book character another shot. It was announced just days ago that Brian Taylor had signed on to direct Hellboy: The Crooked Man, a new reboot which will be scripted by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola in collaboration with Christopher Golden. While speaking with Collider, Taylor spilled a few details about Hellboy: The Crooked Man, including that it will be an R-rated folk horror movie.

“So first of all, I love the character of Hellboy and my favorite run of the character is this particular era,” Brian Taylor said. “The GDT movies were massive scale space operas and just pure Del Toro through and through. But some of the comics Mike (Mignola) was doing at the time had a very different feeling. More lean and mean, creepy folk horror. A younger Hellboy, wandering the dark corners of the world… Paranormal investigator, night stalker… The Crooked Man in particular is just such an iconic book—written by Mike, drawn by Richard Corben, another legend. Set in the late 50s. For me it’s my favorite version of the character. So the appeal of this one to me, is to go back to that and do a real reset, and really give us that version of Hellboy, which I just don’t think we’ve seen yet.” Taylor added that he pitched Hellboy: The Crooked Man as an R-rated project, saying that Millennium has been nothing but supportive of the choice.

We’ve definitely had a discussion of, you know, it doesn’t really serve anybody to make something R for R’s sake. To say it has to be R so we have to add A, B and C. But this material, this original material is dark and scary and violent and adult. So in order to really embrace that, we just don’t wanna have any handcuffs on.

We’ll soon hear some casting news regarding the project, as production will kick off in April. Much of the shooting will take place in Bulgaria, but they will be headed to Greece as well. Brian Taylor added that there will be three leads in the movie, including Hellboy, Tom Ferrell, and a new character who Mike Mignola created especially for the movie. The last Hellboy reboot was also an R-rated affair, but Taylor hopes that their love for the source material will help make this a more successful project.

Hellboy: The Crooked Man will find Hellboy and a rookie BPRD agent stranded in 1950 rural Appalachia where they discover a small community haunted by witches, led by a local devil with a troubling connection to Hellboy’s past. Are you looking forward to another R-rated Hellboy reboot? Do you think this one will fare any better?