Over a decade has passed since Ron Perlman stormed the screen as everyone's favorite
half-demon — but is this beloved cult series dead and buried, or is there hope for Hellboy yet?
Sony's 2004 movie Hellboy may have been met with plenty of fanfare in the comic book fan community,
but it didn't muster much excitement from wider audiences. Despite being made on a
relatively modest budget for a spring action movie, Hellboy flopped at the box office,
failing to even pass the $100 million dollar mark. In fact, it's actually quite remarkable that it
even got a sequel at all, and it remains one of the few box office bombs to receive a follow-up.
That Hellboy II: The Golden Army even happened might be down to director Guillermo del Toro's
newfound clout in Hollywood following the Academy Award wins for his 2006 film,
Pan's Labyrinth. Arriving in 2008 and distributed this time by Universal, The Golden Army may be an
even better movie than the previous film — and it performed better at the box office,
too. But with an $82 million dollar budget, the movie still couldn't be considered a hit,
and two consecutive lackluster performances weren't a good sign for the franchise.
Over the years, the cast and crew behind the Hellboy films have had much to say about a
potential third installment in the series. Unfortunately, it's all been pretty sobering,
and that goes especially for Guillermo del Toro himself. Since the release of The Golden Army,
the director has acknowledged that no studio is likely to give him the
budget he needs to make a third movie. In 2013, he told Collider:
"It's very unlikely it'll happen because you need things to converge so strongly."
Del Toro went on to say that many things need to come together for Hellboy 3 to happen,
from the IP's rights to Ron Perlman's schedule to comic creator Mike Mignola's blessing. And then,
he added, you need $150 million on top of that. Given the mediocre response at the ticket counter
for the first two films, this all seems pretty unlikely. Even star Ron Perlman seems to believe
that we've probably seen the last of his version of the character. In 2021, he told Inverse:
"The Hellboy saga was always meant to be a trilogy. [...] It was a shame the audience,
who had hung in with us for the first two films,
was deprived of seeing that finish because it would have been a big beautiful finish."
"I'll never give up on you… ever."
"I like that."
Guillermo del Toro has long expressed his hopes to turn the Hellboy films into a trilogy, and,
according to the director, it's pretty much all he ever really wanted. He wasn't quite
as keen as other studios about turning Hellboy into a full-blown franchise,
however, so he had subsequently figured out a plan to end Hellboy's story in
the third movie. Before the release of The Golden Army, he told SciFi:
"If there was ever a third one, I would really make sure that we at least sign a
contract that there is no more. No prequels and no sequels — nothing. [...] There is a
third one we have planned, and the seeds are planted in this film."
According to the director, the plot would also have seen the gun-toting,
BPRD agent Hellboy taking on a new breed of Nazis in the modern day. He said:
"It's not this group of freakies that hide in the sewers but people that are incredibly rich."
In a 2016 Reddit AMA, del Toro went into even more detail about his dream Hellboy threequel. He said:
"The idea for it was to have Hellboy finally come to terms with the fact that his destiny,
his inevitable destiny, is to become the Beast of the Apocalypse and having him and
Liz face [...] that part of his nature. [...] He has to become the Beast of the Apocalypse
to be able to defend humanity, but at the same time, he becomes a much darker being."
The first two films in the Hellboy series boasted impressive casts. In addition to star Ron Perlman,
the movies featured Selma Blair as firestarter Liz Sherman, Doug Jones as fish-man Abe Sapien,
John Hurt as Professor Bruttenholm, and a supporting cast that included Jeffrey Tambor and
Rupert Evans. If there ever is going to be a third film in the series, you can bet that at least Ron
Perlman would be back — even if he is well past retirement age. In 2022, he told the Independent:
"Am I eager to do Hellboy 3? No, I'm 71 f---ing years old."
That said, it seems he just can't bring himself to say no. Perlman continued:
"We owe this to the fans, and we should give it to them because it would be an epic conclusion.
So Guillermo, if you're reading, I'm not done pounding you to get this f---ing thing done."
"Let me go in and say hi."
Perlman isn't the only one interested in coming back, either, and it sounds like
a potential threequel would reunite much of the original cast. In 2019, Selma Blair told
CinemaBlend that she wished she could star in Hellboy 3 "more than anything in the world."
In an interview with ComicBook.com, Doug Jones was also enthusiastic about returning as Abe. He said:
"If they were to do such a thing, and I was offered that,
and I was free to do so, hell yes. I would be involved."
By the late 2010s, the lights had dimmed on the prospects of Hellboy 3. But Hollywood just
couldn't shake the franchise's potential. So, in 2019, a Hellboy reboot was released in theaters.
Stranger Things star David Harbour played the title role this time around,
and he seemed perfectly suited to the character — a larger-than-life figure
with a gruff attitude and a unique sense of charm. But any hopes for outdoing del Toro's
original films were immediately dashed when it bombed in theaters. The woeful
reviews didn't exactly help, either. Just barely making back its budget,
2019's Hellboy had none of the style or substance of del Toro's version, and many felt it was a
completely unnecessary reboot that wasted the good will still left from the previous movies.
Original star Ron Perlman was quick to express a complete lack of interest in the reboot,
admitting that he didn't plan on watching the movie. He told Empire:
"It was none of my business. It would only provoke me into whatever things
I didn't need to add to my list of grievances."
Speaking about his own potential return to the role, Perlman made
it clear that del Toro would have to be sitting in the director's chair. He said
"Without him, I have no interest in donning the make-up again."
If there's anyone who has been more vocal about Hellboy 3 than Ron Perlman,
it would have to be the movie's fans. Despite the first film's disappointment at the box office,
it became a cult classic among sci-fi, horror, and superhero movie fans, which is exactly what
helped get the first sequel made in the first place. Even after The Golden Army failed to
meet box office expectations, those same fans began campaigning for a threequel to be made.
Online petitions have popped up frequently over the years,
and while they failed to gain enough traction to interest any studio in a third movie,
they showed that fans meant business. In an interview with Red Carpet News TV, Perlman said:
"It's so deserved by the fans who hung in there for the first
two that I really feel as though it's essential that we make it."
But he wasn't the only one to acknowledge the support from people demanding a third
Hellboy movie. Taking to his Twitter account in 2017, director Guillermo del Toro thanked
the fans for their support. At the time, the fandom was reacting with a mixture
of astonishment and disappointment at the news that Hellboy would be getting a reboot
instead of a third film. But even that project didn't stop fans from pushing for more of del
Toro's vision. One Twitter user echoed the sentiments of many in 2023, when they wrote:
"Bring back Ron Perlman."
Considering the cost associated with producing Guillermo del Toro's third Hellboy film and
the mediocre performances of the first two films at the box office, we already know that
Hellboy 3 probably won't happen. And it seems that there's one more big problem standing in its way:
yet another Hellboy reboot, which was announced in 2023. This movie will be
spearheaded by director Brian Taylor, whose most recent comic adaptation was the 2017 series Happy!
Titled Hellboy: The Crooked Man, this second attempt to
reboot the character will put a new spin on the story. Taking place in the 1950s,
the movie is intended to be a period piece in which Hellboy, a fresh-faced BPRD agent,
investigates a coven of witches in a small Appalachian town. Jack Kesy is set to star as
Hellboy, while Yellowstone star Jeffrey White and Riverdale's star Adeline Rudolph will also appear.
Going back to the comic book's roots, the second reboot will also feature a script from Hellboy
creator Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden, who has penned several Hellboy novels. Will it
work? Who knows? If it does, though, it could hammer the final nail into Hellboy 3's coffin.
Though hope may seem lost in rounding out the original Hellboy trilogy,
one unique opportunity may allow it to finally come to fruition. Today, lesser-successful cult
hits have been enjoying comebacks of their own, despite floundering at the box office. And some
critics have suggested that Hellboy was ahead of its time, just missing the superhero movie
boom sparked by Marvel's MCU, which kicked off the same summer as The Golden Army.
Some 15 years have now passed since that second film — plenty of time for a new
generation to discover the Hellboy movies on streaming and home video.
And the passion shared by diehard fans has never faltered. Meanwhile,
mid-budget horror and tongue-in-cheek sci-fi has never been more popular.
And while Ron Perlman is indeed getting up there in years, and may be running out of
time to play Hellboy, stories about older heroes are more popular than ever. In fact, the likes of
Halloween Ends, Logan, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny have proved that audiences can
still love heroes at the end of their journey. Maybe there's still hope for Hellboy after all.