Phil Roberts 
Empire Magazine unveils our first real look at Neil Marshall’s upcoming reboot
With so many incredible cinematic blockbusters heading our way over the busy festive period one can be forgiven for forgetting about the amazing treats awaiting us in 2019.
Just one of these cinematic treats is the highly anticipated and tantalising reboot of the Hellboy franchise. Neil Marshall’s R-Rated blockbuster has cast David Harbour (Stranger Things) at the big red warrior with a supporting cast boasting the talents of Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane and Sasha Lane.
Despite fans of the franchise campaigning for a legitimate climax to the Guillermo Del Toro trilogy, the reboot was given the green light and we are fast approaching its official release date early next year. Thankfully, the great team at Empire Magazine have provided us with our first exclusive look at the big red monkey and he looks every bit as menacing as his Ron Pearlman predecessor.
unlike the Del Toro series, Neil Marshall’s incarnation will be harder, darker and bloodier than ever before and when talking to Empire he said:
“It was always a case of, ‘When in doubt, go back to the source material.’ Some of the stuff is pretty sick.” He then added, “More violent and more bloody. We weren’t making it with handcuffs on.”
Without reading too much into his comments, it’s safe to assume that the production team have dipped into Mike Mignola’s long-running Hellboy comic book series, where the famed creator’s run of the character resulted in Big Red travelling to some of the weirdest and darkest places on the planet.
When talking about why his team chose to reboot the HELLBOY universe, rather than pick up where filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro left off with HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY, Mignola told Empire:
“We went back and forth on that,” he said. “Early on there was some idea of continuing the storyline that del Toro had started but would that be fair to a new director? So we decided to just start over. Neil is a horror director, so the idea then was to make a darker film. If you are going to use a guy, let him do what he does best. So we went through the script taking out the del Toro-isms and in some ways go out of our way to make sure we are doing a different Hellboy with its own distinct character but still adhering to the comics.”
This is exciting news. Whether you’re a fan of the Del Toro movies or not Neil Marshall’s incarnation is shaping up to be an incredible roller coaster ride of comic book action. In a time where R-Rated comic book franchises are becoming a normality, the timing couldn’t be better for a darker, harder version of Hellboy.
Whether it can hold a candle to Ron Pearlman’s version of the character remains to be seen but it’s a tantalising prospect for 2019.
HELLBOY is scheduled to unleash hell on April 12, 2019.
The Future of the Force. The future of pop culture writing.
Source: Empire
Phil Roberts is the Owner, Daily Content Manager, and Editor-In-Chief of The Future of the Force. He is passionate about Star Wars, Batman, DC, Marvel, Star Trek, Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, King Kong, and the Ray Harryhausen movies. Follow him on Twitter where he uses the force and babbles frequently!
