Hellboy is getting a reboot

Hellboy is getting another chance on screen, this time with director Brian Taylor. Millennium Media will be rolling out a live-action reboot of the story.

Taylor already has some superhero movie directing experience under his belt. In 2011, he directed ‘Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance’ and ‘Jonah Hex’ a year earlier.

According to an exclusive report with Discussing Film, the working title for the upcoming film will be ‘Hellboy: The Crooked Man.’ However, it’s still unconfirmed if that will be the final title, or if Crooked Man is the story the reboot will be based on.

Possible storyline

‘Hellboy: The Crooked Man’ is a three issue mini-series that debuted in 2011. The story follows Hellboy in 1956 somewhere in the mountains of West Virginia, as he encounters Tom, a man who sold his soul to a backwoods demon known as the Crooked Man.

Together, they travel back into the Appalachian mountains to confront the demon and see if Tom’s soul can be saved. However, official plot details of the reboot and how much source material will be used have yet to be released.

According to the report, filming for the reboot is planned to begin in Bulgaria this April and they are currently in the casting stages.

Previous Hellboys

The reboot is expected to be unconnected to previous Hellboy films. The character last made an appearance on screen in 2019 in Neil Marshall’s film ‘Hellboy.’

The 2019 film is considered to be incredibly unsuccessful, with a budget of $50 million and only bringing in $55.1 million total at the box office.

According to Business Insider, ‘Hellboy’ flopped due to an unfortunate release date, a change in directors, and poor branding among other factors. ‘Hellboy’ was intended to be the third live-action film in the series, after Guillermo del Toro directed the first two.

Del Toro was not offered a full writer-director role, which in turn led to actors such as Ron Perlman, who portrayed Hellboy in the first films, refusing to return to the franchise. Del Toro was only offered a producer role, which he declined.

The movie’s production attempted to further distance themselves from Del Toro’s successful prequels by focusing more on the comic books for the creature design elements, rather than the previous films.

As for the upcoming reboot, according to Discussing Film, it’s unlikely that Ron Perlman or David Harbour from the 2019 film will be returning to their characters as Hellboy. This is likely because of the financial failure of the 2019 film and Perlman’s loyalty to Del Toro as writer and director.