Mike Mignola: Hellboy reboot trades superheroics for horror

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Director Guillermo del Toro and star Ron Perlman always hoped to follow up their comic book adaptations HELLBOY and HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY with a trilogy capper, but that just wasn't meant to be, as the HELLBOY cinematic franchise has gotten a reboot with Neil Marshall (DOG SOLDIERS, THE DESCENT) at the helm and Stranger Things' David Harbour in the role of the titular hero.

This new HELLBOY (which was briefly being referred to as HELLBOY: RISE OF THE BLOOD QUEEN), was written by Andrew Cosby, Christopher Golden, Aron Coleite, and Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. The story finds 

Hellboy, along with his team of paranormal researchers, trying to save the world from a medieval sorceress who wants to destroy humankind. 

The R-rated reboot is said to be a darker film than del Toro's PG-13 adaptations, and Harbour has described it as a scary monster movie. In a recent interview with io9, Mignola reiterated that this one has a different tone, saying that it will stand out among the other superhero movies in theatres these days by taking a horror approach.

Well, I mean, if anything, we’re trying to do something very different. Basically, there’s no part of Hellboy that was ever going to be like other superhero movies. And the more Marvel stuff there is, the more DC stuff there is, Hellboy never really feels like—even in the [Guillermo] del Toro things—a superhero movie. It’s so much “big teams of guys, in costumes, running around and saving the world from big cosmic menace stuff…” I believe the new movie will feel even less like a regular superhero thing. The idea with this one was to make it play much less like a superhero film, to downplay the superhero elements even more than del Toro did. This one is much more folklore/mythology/horror, and not “big team rushing into to do battle with whatever kind of stuff.”

Mignola also talked about helping Harbour figure out the character: 

It was really interesting with David, because we met very briefly for 20 minutes when he was in town. Then he would text me questions periodically with questions, like, “Are there any animals you thought of in the way Hellboy moves?” And we were texting back and forth one night a lot about crazy stuff like that, and I finally said, “Dude, I am tired of typing, just call me.” We must have had this two-hour conversation where we got into the way I grew up, what my brothers were like, and all this stuff that fed into what Hellboy is. The attitudes, the characters, and stuff like that… and hopefully it didn’t f*ck things up, because it was way more information and backstory to the creative process than anyone would ever need. But it did make for an interesting, long phone call. And I know David has his own ideas about how to interpret the character, but it was really nice that we had this one, really long conversation about where this stuff came from."

Harbour's co-stars in the film include Ian McShane as Hellboy's mentor Professor Broom, Sasha Lane as his love interest Alice Monaghan, Penelope Mitchell as the elder witch Ganeida, Daniel Dae Kim as Major Ben Daimio (who can turn into a jaguar), Sophie Okonedo as the seer Lady Hatton, Alistair Petrie as Lord Adam Glaren of the supernatural mystery investigating Osiris Club, Brian Gleeson as the wizard Merlin, and Milla Jovovich as the villainous Nimue, Queen of Blood.

HELLBOY is scheduled to reach theatres on January 11, 2019, and I'm very interested to see what this one is going to be like. I have faith that Marshall and Harbour have done something cool with it.