A Second Hellboy Reboot is Officially on the Way (theverge.com) 63
An anonymous reader shares a report: Almost two decades after the release of the Guillermo del Toro-directed Hellboy, the character is getting yet another reboot. Millennium Media has confirmed that Hellboy: The Crooked Man will enter production next month in Bulgaria, Deadline reports. Casting for the titular character (originally played by Ron Perlman and then David Harbour) is yet to be announced, but the new film will be directed by Brian Taylor, best known for the Jason Statham action movie Crank.
Perhaps most interesting is that the comics' original creator Mike Mignola has written the script for the upcoming film alongside Chris Golden. Both were reported to have worked on the script for the 2019 reboot by The Hollywood Reporter, though Andrew Cosby ultimately ended up with sole credit for writing the screenplay. The 2019 reboot is widely considered to have been both a commercial and critical failure, bringing in roughly $55 million at the box office on a budget of $50 million.
Perhaps most interesting is that the comics' original creator Mike Mignola has written the script for the upcoming film alongside Chris Golden. Both were reported to have worked on the script for the 2019 reboot by The Hollywood Reporter, though Andrew Cosby ultimately ended up with sole credit for writing the screenplay. The 2019 reboot is widely considered to have been both a commercial and critical failure, bringing in roughly $55 million at the box office on a budget of $50 million.
The problem (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish them luck though, I did like the originals, but the last reboot was meh.
Re: (Score:2)
"Hell... Hell never changes."
I suspect... (Score:5, Insightful)
The people who liked the first two Hellboy movies wanted the third one to complete the trilogy. They didn't want a reboot. So the primary fan base was already a bit alienated from the get-go.
People who didn't care about the first two Hellboy movies probably didn't care about the reboot either.
Knowing what one's target audience actually wants is important.
Re: (Score:3)
Knowing what one's target audience actually wants is important.
Although the flipside of this is that sometimes it seems like Hollywood tries too hard to please internet fanbois. I got the impression from Star Trek Discovery that once they started appealing to the "But it's not enough like Trek because..." critics, the result was something stuck in the uncanny valley between the original vision they had for the show and something which truly felt like Star Trek.
I actually feel like writing was a lot better before writers feared criticism from the online peanut gallery.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like their mistake was to call their unrelated space fantasy series "Star Trek" in the first place. The writing can be great in a vacuum, but if it doesn't fit in with the setting and ethos of the existing work, then it is bad writing, for that series
Re: (Score:2)
The writing can be great in a vacuum
I see what you did there.
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you, I'll be here all night!
Re: (Score:2)
...I actually feel like writing was a lot better before writers feared criticism from the online peanut gallery.
Imagine for a moment if taxpayers actually had the power to dictate or even revoke a law enforcer's paycheck within a fiscal quarter. Everyone from the local beat cop to the judge would be affected.
Do you think it would affect a cop's ability to pull over a citizen and punish them for breaking the rules? Do you think rule "enforcement" would essentially turn into a joke? I certainly do.
Now imagine how it actually is for most of Hollywood to secure their next paycheck. Of course we're seeing ALL the "rul
Re: (Score:2)
The difference is maybe that with Hollywood, we already have that power. If a director creates one box office bomb after another, he's not much longer a director.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Did Discovery improve? I gave up towards the end of the first season, there was too much that felt off:
* everyone has to be pointedly gay/bi/trans/non-binary/ethnic etc to the extent that it feels like a sledgehammer diversity and inclusion sermon
* snarky Buffy-style dialogue
* non-stop music which thereby loses all impact and makes the whole thing feel like a video-game cut scene (Picard has this too but the overall hokiness of the show makes it more bearable)
* non-stop moving and "epic" camerawork (like th
Re: (Score:2)
> Did Discovery improve?
No. After they lost Michelle Yeoh (Paramount really, Really, REALLY should have sent a bunch of dump trucks full of cash, gold bars, and bricks of cocaine over to her house... or whatever else it would have taken to keep her.) it took a hard turn for the worse. Where ST:DIS always suffered from a case of: "Let's stop dealing with the crisis and take a 5-minute break to talk about our feelings." But this last season, they turned that up to eleven and it really could have been ti
Re: (Score:3)
Discovery sucks, I am sorry but as someone who literally grep up watching TOS reruns with Dad and then TNG and everything between then and now.
I stopped watching Discovery after the second seasons. Its not Trek at all its a radical departure from the mechanics of the Trek universe for no reason other than FUCK you fans that have invested in understanding the general conceits of the Trek Universe.
Literally every characters is struggling with some trauma or mental illness. Its like TNG but every episode is
Re: (Score:2)
When you are writing for a franchise, you have to deal with expectations. You want to cash in on them, so you have to satisfy them. If you don't want to do this, you have to create your own series with its own background, its own lore, its own rules and you can do whatever you want with it.
Hollywood seems to forget that lately. They want to cash in on the name, they want people to go into a movie because of brand recognition, then they lament that people don't judge the movie by its own merit but in compari
Re: (Score:2)
The people who liked the first two Hellboy movies wanted the third one to complete the trilogy. They didn't want a reboot. So the primary fan base was already a bit alienated from the get-go.
People who didn't care about the first two Hellboy movies probably didn't care about the reboot either.
Knowing what one's target audience actually wants is important.
I think you do a Hellboy reboot for the same reason you did the first Hellboy, you think the source material is strong enough to make a successful movie.
Neither the comic nor the first movie is going to bring much audience on its own.
Re: (Score:1)
I don't. Make. Something. Original. We do not need a single more reboot, prequel, "homage", sequel, or remake. Not of anything. Make some original stories for a change.
Re: (Score:2)
>I wish them luck I don't. Make. Something. Original. We do not need a single more reboot, prequel, "homage", sequel, or remake. Not of anything. Make some original stories for a change.
Probably going to be a few years until we get original movies. There is a lack of talent or something like that in the industry at the moment. At this point they can't do much that is interesting.
SO watches a lot of old stuff and I watch YT documentaries as well. If something really good comes along, I'll watch it long after it runs in theaters.
Re: (Score:2)
It's more the same problem that plagues the AAA games industry: Projects have become SO expensive that anything that could even possibly be considered a risk is an absolutely no-go. Playing it safe and sticking to what worked in the past is the name of the game.
Re: (Score:2)
It's more the same problem that plagues the AAA games industry: Projects have become SO expensive that anything that could even possibly be considered a risk is an absolutely no-go. Playing it safe and sticking to what worked in the past is the name of the game.
That camel needs to find a new Oasis pretty soon though.
From the home of ridiculous analogies.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes exactly. The problem is that the suits who bankroll productions all seem to believe that you have to have an IP with a name and an existing fanbase for it to be successful. So they are all searching for shows, films, books and any other IPs which had any amount of popularity in the past and 'rebooting', 'reimagining' and whatever else you call it. The fact that they are now making a second reboot of something that, as far as I can tell, really wasn't a household name originally, shows they are running o
Re: (Score:2)
Yes exactly. The problem is that the suits who bankroll productions all seem to believe that you have to have an IP with a name and an existing fanbase for it to be successful.
There I go reading before the coffee kicks in. I read that sentence as you have to have an IP address, and wondered wut? Anyhow, yes, Intellectual property. Yes, this is a big problem. A weird sort of conservative constraint with the money people in a field where many of the rest - actors and writers have a very liberal bent.
The problem is making movies is really no place to be looking at a guaranteed return, it's darn speculative.
So they are all searching for shows, films, books and any other IPs wh
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
David Harbour was good in the reboot too. Problem wasn't who they cast as Hellboy but how execrable the script and direction was that scuppered any chance of his performance mattering. Even the director wanted to wash his hands of the experience.
Re: The problem (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I know, but I have to ask why though? Why a needless reboot?
The present day version of moviemaking is to take a movie that was made before, and had some success, and redo it.
And while it is possible to reboot or make a new version of an existing movie, it only goes so far.
To complicate matters, some reboots have had a lot of politics inserted into them. Now movies or video entertainment have always had politics or worldview, the present day versions are incredibly clumsy and heavy handed, occasionally more akin to lectures than entertainment. And the advent of
Hellboy, oh boy... (Score:1)
The first one was good.
The sequel was meh.
They made a reboot?
They're making another reboot?
Re: (Score:2)
Ya, my question too - I never heard of the first reboot...
Re: (Score:2)
Ya, my question too - I never heard of the first reboot...
I've seen the first reboot. I just had to watch the trailer to remind me what it was about though. It was literally a forgettable movie.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess it's either this or yet *another* Spider-Man reboot ... (sigh)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Writing. Pure and simple, they had the best of the best source material to work with.
This Hellboy has a chance of being worthwhile for the same reason—original creator will be co-writing the script.
I won't be holding my breath, but given the director and the writer involved, it should at least be entertaining.
Re: (Score:2)
Writing. Pure and simple, they had the best of the best source material to work with.
They've pretty well run out of that now. And it shows.
Re: (Score:2)
Then I thought, "Wait a minute. James Bond has been swapping out its leading man for over 50 years, and that's still a successful franchise. What makes 007 different?"
Sure, but they haven't really rebooted the series with each new Bond, just kept going with the new guy like he was a regenerated Time Lord -- which, come to think of it ...
Re: (Score:2)
the first half of the first one was good, until it turned into a typical comic book movie, IE audio visual noise with people trying to hard spitting smartass comments every 10 seconds
Re: (Score:2)
Does Hollywood use Windows or something? (Score:4, Funny)
All they seem to be doing are reboots, like and old Windows machine.
Re: (Score:2)
They wouldn't keep doing it unless people kept buying tickets.
Re: (Score:2)
They wouldn't keep doing it unless people kept buying tickets.
Studios that have more money than God to push their own delusions and agenda, don't give a shit about ticket sales.
That's painfully obvious given the garbage that keeps getting brought forth over and over again.
A reboot? Why? (Score:3)
A third time seems to be like, who wants that? (besides movie executives)
You know what needs a reboot? the MCU.
Yeah, not the same people and studio, but that thing ought to have ended and be rebooted after the Avengers Infinity War.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, fucking, said.
Re: (Score:2)
I always find it funny to see people angry that other people are enjoying themselves. How dare they! amirite?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Disney seems to have been on a bit of a bender beating their acquired Marvel & Star Wars IP to death. There must be serious panic setting in about their losses if this continues.
It's kind of funny that they went so big with Infinity War that everything after feels like an anti-climax. But it doesn't help that most of what came after in phase 4 (and now phase 5) have been complete duds - dull, nonsensical, CG laden snoozefests that don't advance any plot or make any meaningful contribution at all. Or the
Re: (Score:2)
You know what needs a reboot? the MCU.
Since they've killed off the main characters in the name of feminist payback and woke stupidity, there's nothing left to reboot.
In other words "He's dead Jim.."
I'm listening... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Mostly because they didn't need much in the way of makeup.
It's obvious who will star as the new Hellboy... (Score:1)
Scarlett Johansson
Nuff said ;-)
Can't wait! (Score:1)
I, for one, am going to hold by breath, until it is in the theaters!
Guillermo Del Toro is key... (Score:2)
Hollywood seriously needs to just STOP taking franchises away from Guillermo Del Toro. Seriously, has dumping Del Toro EVER worked out for the better? I can't think of any case in which it has. And while doing so hasn't necessarily destroyed *every* franchise where the Hollywood suits fired him, there are definitely some examples (Blade 3 and Hellboy 3 come to mind.) that went catastrophically bad afterwards.