Do you have some questions about the upcoming Hellboy film?
Questions like: why film a reboot at all?
Why is it R-rated?
Or, if you're new to this whole scene, perhaps you're just wondering who Hellboy is in the
first place?
Well, we're here to help.
Hellboy was originally conceived in 1991 by comic creator Mike Mignola, and appeared in
various one-off stories and illustrations before his own title arrived in 1994.
Despite his bright red, horned humanoid appearance, Hellboy is technically only half-demon, as
the comics establish him to be the child of a Duke of Hell and a human witch.
Born in Hell after his mother's body was taken there by his biological father, Hellboy was
summoned to Earth in 1944 as the result of a Nazi occult ritual led by the sorcerer Grigori
Rasputin . In the comics, he appears in England, where American soldiers and Professor Trevor
Bruttenholm are investigating Nazi activity.
"But nevertheless, a name we all came to use.
We called him: Hellboy."
Over time, it became clear that the young Hellboy was, despite his appearance, an apparently
good soul, and in a matter of years he was recruited to become the world's most effective
paranormal investigator.
Working with Bruttenholm as his mentor and surrogate father, Hellboy travels the world
battling various paranormal threats.
As a half-demon, Hellboy possesses extraordinary strength and durability that allow him to
continue fighting well past human limits.
Perhaps most importantly, he's basically fireproof, which makes sense for someone who's half Hellspawn.
Then there's the matter of his right hand.
"And I beheld an angel, and in his right hand, was the key to the bottomless pit."
Known as the Right Hand of Doom, it was grafted onto his infant body by his father at birth.
The hand originally belonged to an ancient spirit called Anum, who was the creator of
the Ogdru Jahad, legendary imprisoned creatures who are prophesied to one day be released
and bring about the end of the world.
Hellboy's Right Hand is the key to releasing and controlling the Ogdru Jahad, even if Hellboy
himself would rather not.
Beyond that, it's also a big heavy hand that he can use to hit monsters with.
In more recent comic book stories, Hellboy has assumed greater control over his demonic
form, to the point that he can manipulate his own size and even sprout wings and full
horns when he wishes, although this is not generally an ability explored in film versions
of the character... yet.
In the 2019 Hellboy, Milla Jovovich plays Nimue.
Originally known as the Lady of the Lake, Nimue is a being from Arthurian legend that
was a powerful witch, and extremely close to Merlin.
Merlin told her all of his magical secrets, but she ultimately imprisoned him and went
mad with the dark knowledge.
She was eventually killed when all the other witches of Britain banded together to kill
her and seal her body deep in a tomb.
In the comic story The Wild Hunt, Nimue is resurrected after she's nominated to become
the leader of the witches of Britain, many of whom flee in terror from her power.
It's during this storyline that Morgana le Fay reveals to Hellboy that he's actually
the last heir of King Arthur, setting up a showdown between Hellboy and Nimue that could
bring about the end of the world.
Suffice it to say, Nimue is bad news indeed.
Hellboy wouldn't be who he is without Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, the man who found and
essentially adopted him in 1944 when he first appeared on Earth.
Bruttenholm is an English occult expert who began working with Allied forces in World
War II when it became clear that the Nazis were planning to call demonic forces to earth.
After the war, Broom helped to form the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, and he
and Hellboy battled various occult threats together until Broom's retirement as director
of the agency.
In the comics, Broom was killed in 1994 by a frog monster tied to the Ogdru Jahad, and
had a similarly gruesome end in 2004's Hellboy movie.
He was played by John Hurt in both the original and 2008's Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and
is played by Ian McShane in the 2019 film.
Throughout his comic book and cinematic history, Hellboy has retained close ties to the Bureau
for Paranormal Research and Defense, or B.P.R.D.
The bureau's mission statement is right there in its name.
"There are things that go bump in the night, Agent Myers, make no mistake about that.
We are the things that go bump back."
Its job is to research and combat various occult threats and phenomena that may pose
a threat to humanity, often with the aid of various supernatural entities and humans who
have been gifted with special abilities.
Hellboy is the most prominent of these members, but the bureau has also included members like
the fish man Abe Sapien, and the pyrokinetic human Elizabeth Sherman.
In the 2019 film, the B.P.R.D. also includes Ben Daimio, a B.P.R.D. agent who was killed
by a jaguar cult on assignment in Bolivia.
Daimio rose from the dead, and has since manifested the ability to transform into a jaguar creature.
In November of 2018, a last-minute casting addition was announced for the new Hellboy
film: Thomas Haden Church joined the reboot as Lobster Johnson, a character created by
Mike Mignola in 1999 as an homage to various pulp heroes of the early twentieth-century.
In the comics, "The Lobster" was a vigilante in Depression-era New York City, known for
burning his lobster emblem into the flesh of criminals.
To the public, he was thought to be an urban legend, and eventually a fictional character
dreamed up by a pulp writer.
Instead, the Lobster was real enough to begin working for the U.S. government in the late
1930s in an effort to thwart various Nazi missions.
He died in 1939 while attempting to stop a Nazi space launch that would have possibly
put the Third Reich into space.
In 2001, he appeared in the Conqueror Worm storyline as a ghost who haunts the ruins
of the castle where he died.
He's made occasional appearances in the comics since, lending a ghostly helping hand to the
B.P.R.D. against supernatural threats.
The first two Hellboy films were masterminded by director Guillermo del Toro, with Ron Perlman
in the title role.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army ends with a hint for more Hellboy story to come.
Unfortunately, the film underperformed, and a planned third movie didn't materialize.
As years went by, del Toro continued to express interest, but in early 2017 he announced that
all efforts had finally been exhausted.
Months later, the reboot was announced without del Toro attached.
According to Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, there was some talk of trying to continue
del Toro's story with a new film, but he felt that wouldn't be fair to a new team of filmmakers.
He told SyFy that he was looking forward to director Neil Marshal's take:
In the summer of 2017, the Hellboy reboot ignited an uproar with a casting announcement.
Ed Skrein was confirmed to play Ben Daimio.
In the comics, Daimio is Japanese-American, and this heritage plays a major role in both
his life and in the B.P.R.D. comics stories.
Fans were confused and upset that the production didn't cast a Japanese-American actor to better
depict the character on-screen.
Skrein became aware of the outcry after taking the roll, and released a statement saying
he would be departing the production to make room for another actor.
Then, in September 2017, Korean-American actor Daniel Dae Kim signed on to play the role
of Ben Daimio.
Thanks to the cast and crew's willingness to correct themselves, we got a Ben Daimio
who looks more like the Ben that fans were introduced to on the comics page.
Both of Hellboy's previous big-screen adventures were PG-13 rated fantasy adventures with certain
horror elements.
However, in 2017, Hellboy director Neil Marshall remarked that he had been granted permission
to take the film into R-rated territory, which he saw not as a mandate, but as a license
to depict the same level of violence often explored in the comics.
In February of 2019, the Hellboy reboot was officially rated R for "strong bloody violence
and gore throughout."
It also earned that rating because of language.
Star David Harbour explained to MTV :
"It goes R for a bit of gore and horror, but also a bit of just the mature aspect of it,
the mature themes of it.
Just that we’re dealing with complicated subjects."
The first Hellboy film was a loose adaptation of his first major story, Seed of Destruction.
The sequel, The Golden Army, was an original story conceived by Guillermo del Toro, and
the third film would have followed that concept.
For the reboot, Mignola and company didn't necessarily want to retell the character's
origin story, but they did want to draw heavily from the original comics.
That means that much of Hellboy 2019 will come from various Hellboy comics.
The Wild Hunt, Darkness Calls, The Storm and the Fury, and Hellboy in Mexico are just some
of the storylines that have been clearly referenced in trailers and interview junkets.
In terms of the look of the film, concept artists pulled direct inspiration from comics
by Mignola and other artists, then adapted them to a more real-world look.
Makeup artist Joel Harlow told SyFy:
"What we wanted to do with the character was to make him feel grittier, to feel not so
much like a comic character what would this character look like if he was in the real
world?
Hence the addition of the scars and the addition of the hair and the overall sort of weathering
on him that you do find in the illustrations."
David Harbour became a star in the eyes of genre fans thanks to his role as Chief Hopper
in Stranger Things, a role that gave him the prominence necessary to get a blockbuster
job like Hellboy.
Playing Hellboy created a different set of challenges for Harbour, though, and not just
because of the prosthetic applications and all the stunt work.
Playing Hellboy also meant stepping into a role already made famous by Ron Perlman.
So how did Harbour decide to take the job?
By finding a new approach to the source material.
Harbour told The Hollywood Reporter that he struggled with whether or not to do the film:
"I'm a fan of those movies, and Guillermo is obviously an extraordinary director and
Ron’s an extraordinary actor, and his definition of that role was very iconic.
So in terms of approaching it, even when they approached me I was like, 'why do it?
It’s already been done.'
And they said they wanted to do it differently.
And there is something when you go back to the actual graphic novel that is a bit darker
and bit less clean.
And even in terms of the character arc of Hellboy himself, this piece focuses a little
more on his internal struggles.
I equate it to Hamlet, a little bit, it’s got a certain Hamlet feel to it."
Presumably, there's a little more action in this version of Hamlet.
"To be or not to be…
Not to be."
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