Ron Perlman Explains Guillermo Del Toro's Apocalyptic 'Hellboy 3' Story Idea

The "will they or won't they" question about the creation of a third Hellboy movie is one that continues to come up as writer/director Guillermo del Toro moves through Crimson Peak and into a second Pacific Rim movie. The director hasn't said anything else that inspires great optimism, and star Ron Perlman now seems to have little personal desire to make the movie.

Or, as Perlman said in a recent interview, "I don't want to do Hellboy 3. It's a pain in the ass to put that makeup on and take it off. But I feel we're obligated to finish the story." And now thanks to a new interview, we know something about del Toro's Hellboy 3 story idea that juices up the actor enough that he might just do it, if someone was willing to pay.

Ron Perlman told Empire about Guillermo del Toro's ideas for the Hellboy 3 story.

Guillermo told me what the resolve of the trilogy would look like, in broad strokes, and it's such an amazingly theatrical, cinematic idea, that I found it essential that we do it. We were designed to be a trilogy, with a beginning, a middle and an end. We've only done two-thirds, so I feel that we're not really done until we finish it....

[And then, as to the actual story...] Holy sh*t, he's the beast of the Apocalypse. He has to take down civilization. He has to. It's non-negotiable. That's the foundation for the story, and that's why I think it would be a shame if we don't do it..

There's more, too, and it's not just that someone should tell Perlman that makeup techniques have come a long way in the seven years since the release of Hellboy II: The Golden Army. (Making the idea of putting all that makeup on again perhaps easier to bear.)

Perlman also says that we'd get some follow up on the ending of Hellboy II, and this is your cue that what follows is spoiler territory for a movie nearly ten years old. The film ended with Liz, played by Selma Blair, pregnant with twins. Here's Perlman on what those kids would end up being:

The two twins: one would look like the mum and one would look like the dad. And one of them was going to be completely fucking corrupt, the other one angelic. Which one was which? Only Guillermo would make the fucked-up-looking one be the angel. So then that adds to the saga.

You can listen to more from Perlman here at the Empire podcast.

Just remember that there doesn't seem to be money for this movie coming from the studio right now, as Guillermo del Toro recently explained,

I think that the fans want it, we want it, but studios... it's a big movie, bigger than the first one and the second one. The numbers on the Hellboys made a lot of sense because of video. Hellboy II exists not because a studio head said. 'I'm a big fan.' The first one made money, made much more money on the Blu-ray and DVD than it did theatrically. It made money. Now that market is done.