Pop Culture
This article previously appeared on Outer Places.
While sadly a third Hellboy movie from director Guillermo del Toro is still dead in the water, that doesn't spell the end of the demonic superhero's movie career. In fact, Hellboy creator Mike Mignola himself has announced a new reboot.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, production company Millenium is now working on a new film that's unrelated to del Toro's previous two films, 2004's Hellboy and its 2008 sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Now in charge of the "Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense" is director Neil Marshall (The Descent, some Game of Thrones episodes) and in perhaps the best news from the announcement, Stranger Things star David Harbour is in talks to star as Hellboy himself.
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There's likely to be mixed feelings here: while Ron Perlman played a great Hellboy, and there's no other director who can make whimsically supernatural films quite like Guillermo del Toro, the idea of Harbour (Sheriff Hopper in Stranger Things) in the starring role could be cause for optimism. Sheriff Hopper, as a gruff but lovable hero who investigates the supernatural, already shares some similarities with Mignola's demon—picturing Harbour as a red demon with sawed-off horns and a giant arm isn't too difficult.
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As of right now, the working title is Hellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen, which sounds about as morbidly weird as we could hope for from a Hellboy film. Combine that with Mignola's claim of an R-rating and Harbour's involvement, and it honestly sounds like there's some potential here. It absolutely won't be like del Toro's vision, and we understand why some fans won't be on board with that, but this is far from the worst case scenario.
Because hey, we're getting more Hellboy.
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Featured photo via Netflix / Mike Mignola
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