Last week, we learned that another live-action movie reboot of Hellboy is in the works. This time, Crank co-director Brian Taylor is helming the new adaptation and it will be based on The Crooked Man storyline. The development of the project was eventually confirmed by Deadline which revealed that the film will actually start production very soon.
With the iconic status of the Guillermo del Toro films and the underwhelming results of the 2019 reboot that starred David Harbour, fans have been wondering about what this new take will look like and how it will be different from the previous iterations that we've seen before.
Speaking recently with Collider, Taylor revealed more interesting details about the upcoming new reboot. First, he shared what his new take on the Hellboy will be and why they decided to adapt The Crooked Man for the upcoming reboot.
"So first of all, I love the character of Hellboy and my favorite run of the character is this particular era. The GDT movies were massive-scale space operas and just pure del Toro through and through. But some of the comics Mike [Mignola] was doing at the time had a very different feeling. More lean and mean, creepy folk horror," he said.
"A younger Hellboy, wandering the dark corners of the world... Paranormal investigator, night stalker... The Crooked Man in particular is just such an iconic book—written by Mike, drawn by Richard Corben, another legend. Set in the late '50s. For me, it’s my favorite version of the character. So the appeal of this one to me is to go back to that and do a real reset, and really give us that version of Hellboy, which I just don't think we've seen yet."
Taylor also revealed that the new reboot will be R-rated just like the 2019 reboot and they intend to be very close to Mignola's original work.
The director shared, "We’ve definitely had a discussion of, you know, it doesn't really serve anybody to make something R for R’s sake. To say it has to be R so we have to add A, B, and C. But this material, this original material is dark and scary and violent and adult. So in order to really embrace that, we just don't wanna have any handcuffs on."
So far, they remain mum on the casting of the reboot although Taylor did reveal that the film will have three leads. In addition, he also shared that production will begin this April and is set to primarily take place in Bulgaria.
"We've been doing a lot of location scouting out here and the goal is to recreate 1950s rural Appalachia, and the locations that we're finding, I think would make fans of the original comic really excited. Because some of these places just seem to have sprung straight from the pages. There’s a lot of haunted woods in Bulgaria!," he furthermore added.
The director also gave a glimpse into the film's opening scene as he revealed that the story will start on a freight train. He said, "Yes, it's definitely a freight train. In fact, the movie literally starts on a freight train, it seems like you may have had some supernatural intuition here."
It is exciting to hear these details about the new reboot and it sounds like Taylor is really committed to making a film that fans will love, especially in the aftermath of the panned 2019 reboot. Hopefully, this new take will indeed deliver and bring a Hellboy adventure that the audience will love again.
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