After the final nail was driven into the coffin of Guillermo del Toro's HELLBOY 3, it was somewhat surprising when Hellboy himself emerged from the ashes when it was announced that the franchise would be getting a reboot courtesy of Neil Marshall (THE DESCENT) with David Harbour (Stranger Things) playing the title character. Production on the upcoming reboot, which goes by the title of HELLBOY: RISE OF THE BLOOD QUEEN, is looking to kick off this fall and it looks like the project may have found a home.
First reported by Splash Report, it seems that Lionsgate is in final negotiations to pick up HELLBOY: RISE OF THE BLOOD QUEEN, which would make them the third studio to distribute a HELLBOY film. Guillermo del Toro's first HELLBOY flick was released by Sony, while HELLBOY: THE GOLDEN ARMY was released by Universal. Neil Marshall has said that he wants to give his remake a "stamp of its own" in order to set it apart from del Toro's movies, adding that he's been "working very closely with Mike Mignola to keep it close to the origins of the characters, but also the world and that kind of thing." HELLBOY: RISE OF THE BLOOD QUEEN is also being planned as a "darker, more gruesome version of Hellboy" which will be R-rated.
Marshall has said that the ability to embrace an R-rating will be like "taking the cuffs off," adding that they can "just make the movie we want to make." When asked whether he would embrace practical effects as much as Guillermo del Toro did for his HELLBOY movies, Neil Marshall said that the reboot is "definitely going to be as practical as we can possibly make it … I love to do stuff in camera whenever I possibly can, and use CG as the amazing tool that it is, to enhance or expand upon the world, but not to use it to replace reality, when you can do it [for] real." That all sounds rather good, but Marshall's reboot will have to be quite special in order to ease the pain of a Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman-less HELLBOY.
HELLBOY: RISE OF THE BLOOD QUEEN is expected to be released sometime in 2018.