Despite the poor box office and critical lambasting of the the third film in 2019 that would seem to have put an end to any future films with the film having cost $50m but only earning $55m worldwide – the original film in 2004 and its sequel in 2008 earned $99m and $168m respectively. Yet despite that news is in that not only will there be a Hellboy 4 but that it starts shooting in about a months time. We have done a bit of digging and here’s what we know about this new film…..
- Brian Taylor (“Crank”) will direct with Hellboy 4 title now confirmed title “Hellboy: The Crooked Man” Taylor dircted the Nicolas Vage film ‘Mom and Dad’ (reviewed HERE)
- Shooting begins in March 2023 in Bulgaria
- Original creator Mike Mignola has penned the script alongside his Dark Horse comics collaborator Chris Golden
- The story follows Hellboy and a rookie BPRD agent stranded in 1950s rural Appalachia. There, they discover a small community haunted by witches and led by a local devil with a troubling connection to Hellboy’s past – the Crooked Man. In the comic, said Crooked Man was an 18th century miser and war profiteer named Jeremiah Witkins who was hanged for his crimes yet returned from Hell as the region’s resident Devil.
- The intention for Hellboy 4 is that it should reboot the franchise and instigate a whole series of new films
What we’ve not been able to confirm is the cast and whether David Harbour, who took over from Ron Perlman in the the title role will return again. In fairness he is now much in demand after the success of Netflix’s Stranger Things and most recently the breakout sleeper hit of Christmas, ‘Violent Night’ where he played a psychotically dangerous Santa despatching villains with aplomb and earning a respectable $75m with a sequel already greenlit.
we spoke to Neil Marshall director of Hellboy 3 who told us what the issue was with the third film…..
