Brian Taylor's New Hellboy Movie Will Skew Closer To Mike Mignola's Comics
Life's been hard on Big Red, so far as his live-action outings are concerned. Both "Hellboy" (2004) and its sequel, 2008's "Hellboy II: The Golden Army," are evidence that auteur-driven superhero movies are the best kind there is. Sadly, however, neither of Guillermo del Toro's playfully grotesque supernatural action adventures was a runaway box office hit. On top of that, "The Golden Army" had the misfortune of opening in theaters two months after "Iron Man" and a mere week before "The Dark Knight." Sandwiched between those two game-changing comic book films, it's no wonder del Toro's off-beat creature feature got left in the dust, killing his plans for an apocalyptic finale to the trilogy in the process.
After the Neil Marshall-helmed "Hellboy" reboot fell flat on its face in 2019, it was only natural to assume Hellboy would be spending the foreseeable future in franchise prison. Surprisingly, though, that's not the case. Millennium Media, which was also behind Marshall's movie, has since announced "Hellboy: The Crooked Man," a fresh take that has Brian Taylor (as in, one-half of "Crank" and "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" duo Neveldine/Taylor) directing from a script by "Hellboy" comic book creator Mike Mignola and his writing partner Christopher Golden. So what can we expect?
Speaking to Collider, Taylor praised del Toro's films, calling them "massive scale space operas and just pure del Toro through and through." I confess the "space operas" part throws me a little (del Toro's movies are kinda like the famous "Star Wars: A New Hope" cantina sequence, except far weirder, grosser, and feature-length), but we'll let it slide. He continued, noting the "Hellboy" storylines Mignola was writing at the time del Toro was making his movies "had a very different feeling" — one he hopes to capture with his reboot.
Bring on the folk horror
There's been something of a folk horror renaissance in recent years, with "The Witch" and "Midsommar" obviously leading the way (followed by stranger yet interesting oddities like "Apostle" and "Lamb"). Brian Taylor hopes to ride that renewed wave of interest in the sub-genre with "Hellboy: The Crooked Man," describing it as "more lean and mean, creepy folk horror" in his Collider interview. He's certainly got the perfect source material in Mike Mignola's "The Crooked Man," a three-part 2008 comic book mini-series that follows Big Red on a creep-tastic journey to 1950s Appalachia, pitting him against vicious witch covens and the eponymous character (a duplicitous arms dealer who was killed for his treachery and sent to Hell, only to escape after making a pact with the Devil).
Whereas Guillermo del Toro's "Hellboy" films cast Ron Perlman as a relatively mature version of Hellboy with a sensitive side that makes him prone to drunkenly crooning Barry Manilow tunes, David Harbour's iteration in Neil Marshall's reboot is still in what you might call the moody, rebellious teenager stage of his emotional development as a half-demon. By comparison, Taylor referred to the younger Hellboy in "The Crooked Man" as a bit of a lonely soul who's "wandering the dark corners of the world" as a "paranormal investigator [and] night stalker" when the film picks up. He elaborated:
"'The Crooked Man' in particular is just such an iconic book — written by Mike, drawn by Richard Corben, another legend. Set in the late '50s. For me it's my favorite version of the character. So the appeal of this one to me, is to go back to that and do a real reset, and really give us that version of Hellboy, which I just don't think we've seen yet."
Try, try again?
Since joining the project, Brian Taylor told Collider he's been "trying to bring it even closer to the original comic book" than Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden's initial script draft did. "A comic book will never directly translate to the screen, but I will tell you that my intent in the movie is to really honor and bring to life the original comics," Taylor added. He also confirmed "The Crooked Man" will definitely be rated R, claiming Millennium has been "nothing but supportive" of the idea:
"We've definitely had a discussion of, you know, it doesn't really serve anybody to make something R for R's sake. To say it has to be R so we have to add A, B and C. But this material, this original material is dark and scary and violent and adult. So in order to really embrace that, we just don't wanna have any handcuffs on."
If the prospect of a hard R, comics-faithful "Hellboy" reboot gives you a sense of déjà vu, it's likely because that's pretty much exactly how Neil Marshall's film was pitched. To be fair, that movie's problems had less to do with being faithful to Mignola's work and more to do with its efforts to mash-up multiple "Hellboy" comic stories into a cohesive narrative. Well, that and, reportedly, a contentious production that left all concerned parties dissatisfied with the final film result. Also, some ill-fitting, uninspired juvenile humor, which seems worth mentioning seeing as "The Crooked Man" hales from one of the minds behind the infamous Ghost Rider pissing fire gag.
Don't get me wrong: I want another great "Hellboy" movie and Tayor's filmmaking style works when paired with the right material. But, as the saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice..."