Somewhere in New Zealand, some cork boards are covered in index cards spelling out beat-by-beat the adventures of one Bilbo Baggins and his little magic buddies. Okay, maybe not literally, but Guillermo del Toro did recently spill to MTV that “the cards” were ready for his The Hobbit film. Since then, work has been underway on fleshing out this bare skeleton, conceiving visuals and chewing over casting options.

Early days on his Middle Earth mission, then. Exciting stuff, sure, but for somebody who loved Hellboy 2 as much as I did (and, boy, did I - I went to two press previews and paid for two more tickets too, got the disc in December and loved it all up to a nice shine) there’s got to be some tinge of regret over how long it will be until we see Hellboy 3.

Guillermo tells MTV we can expect nothing at all to move on the proposed film for “three, four years”. On the other hand, the report tells us “Del Toro has given his blessing for another director to take the director’s chair for a potential BPRD spinoff while he is occupied elsewhere.”

Okay… where do I sign? In blood?  Sure.

I’d be interested to see this offshoot blossom, selection of director pending. I’m entirely confident the world that Mignola created (and Del Toro landscaped) is more than rich enough to yield another franchise. It’s a rich place, and stories could travel off in any number of directions without either limiting Del Toro’s options for a third Hellboy yarn, or running aground in a landscape barren of all imagination.

I guess the final question is - which director would you like to see take up this challenge? And are there any BPRD characters you’d love to see featured? The werewolf vogue suggests maybe Ben Daimio is a shoo-in….?