Hellboy: Rise Of The Blood Queen Was Originally Not A Reboot, But A Continuation Of Guillermo del Toro's Franchise

A lot of fans were disappointed that Hellboy will be getting rebooted with David Harbour taking over Ron Perlman's role, but as it turns out, Hellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen was originally supposed to take place in Guillermo del Toro's franchise. The problem was, del Toro didn't want to do the movie.

Speaking with Nerdist, Hellboy creator Mike Mignola explains:

"I would've loved to see Guillermo do his third movie and finish that story… But over the years it became very clear that wasn't going to happen. About three years ago the producers, the screenwriter Andrew Cosby, and I all started working on this new story. Del Toro didn't want to have anything to do with it, he wasn't going to direct. He was offered to be a producer, and Ron [Perlman] wouldn't do it without Guillermo."

He says that the choice to have the reboot was when they had director Neil Marshall onboard. He continues:

"So we originally started trying to tie it to the del Toro universe and continue those movies… But once we had Neil Marshall, we thought, ‘Why are we going to try and continue that universe?' Because a del Toro movie is a del Toro movie, and you don't want to try and hand a del Toro movie to someone else. Especially someone as great as Neil Marshall. So that's when it went from being this continuation to being a reboot. It's exciting to have another director. It's exciting to take another path, to take that material and give it another leaning."

I'm just curious as to why del Toro refused to do the project. Was the story of Blood Queen not good enough for him? Or was it because del Toro had a better story in his head and the studio couldn't make it work?

Hellboy was a pretty fun franchise, and I'm sad to see that it's getting a reboot (an R-rated one at that). I always liked how campy Hellboy's lines can get, and the series is something I think both adults and kids can get into. Shame that we'll never see Perlman suiting up as Hellboy again.

Hopefully, Hellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen delivers. No official release date has been set for the movie.

See Also: David Harbour Wants To Bring Out The "Sweet" And "Weird" Side of Hellboy