Beloved Dark Horse Comics hero Hellboy has a rocky history on the big screen. It started off pretty well thanks to Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy (2004). Fortunes changed in 2018 when the Hellboy reboot with Stranger Things star David Harbour (Sheriff Hopper) was written off by fans and critics alike. Fast forward to today, and the Hellboy franchise is being rebooted again!
Per Variety, the reboot is titled Hellboy: The Crooked Man and will begin production as soon as March of this year. Although the titular hero has not yet been cast, we know that original Hellboy creator Mike Mignola is writing the scripts along with Chris Golden.
Brian Taylor — who co-directed the Crank movies — is set to direct. This isn’t the first time he’s worked on a comic book project. He also brought Robert Kirkman’s Outcast comic to the small screen; the show was cancelled after two seasons.
What will the story be about?
The Hellboy reboot will not link to any of the previous movies. Its title, The Crooked Man, refers to a comic story of the same name from 2008 by Mignola and Richard Corben. The synopsis of the movie sounds like a pretty faithful adaptation of the graphic novel. Quoth Deadline:
"The new film will see Hellboy and a rookie BPRD agent stranded in 1950s rural Appalachia. There, they discover a small community haunted by witches, led by a local devil with a troubling connection to Hellboy’s past: the Crooked Man."
The film comes from Millennium Media, which has had a long-standing connection with the Hellboy franchise. In a statement, president Jeffrey Greenstein shared his excitement for the reboot. “’The Crooked Man’ is a departure from all previous ‘Hellboy’ films where Mike Mignola and the creator of the comics will finally shepherd an authentic version of his stories and characters in film form,” he said. “This is the first in the series of films that will captivate audiences in familiar (and new) ways. Brian Taylor is an expert across the board, and I couldn’t think of a better person to bring this story to life to show our audience this different and original ‘Hellboy’ slate of films.”
I’d like to know how many projects they have in development, given that he mentions a “slate of films.” Makes it sound like they have a big vision for the future of Hellboy.
No release date has been set for Hellboy: The Crooked Man. But with it supposedly entering production as soon as March, we could potentially see it sometime in 2024 if all goes well. Who would you cast as the newest Hellboy?
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