Filming has wrapped on director Neil Marshall’s new film adaptation of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy comics, by all accounts a darker and more loyal take on the original material than the two previous films helmed by this year’s Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro.
del Toro’s first film (especially early on) was obviously inspired by Mignola’s material even with a few modifications like Rupert Evans’ character and a shift in Hellboy & Liz’s relationship. The second film, however, was both more fantastical and more pure del Toro.
Mignola will again be involved behind-the-scenes, but he recently spoke with EW and described how his involvement on this one differed to the previous movies – mainly he was far more involved this time out and mainly with the story as opposed to the designs:
“It’s funny, because my involvement has been very different than the Del Toro movies. The difference is I had known Del Toro for six years by the time we did the first movie. Neil I met a couple months before he worked on the movie.
It was very different, but I have been involved ever since they said ‘Hey we’re gonna make another Hellboy movie, and we’re gonna do this story.’ I’ve bounced back and forth with them about how to adapt this particular Hellboy story.
At various times I’ve jumped in and been much more active in the screenplay than I ever was on the Del Toro movies. But I did nothing so far as design stuff on the movie. Guillermo wanted me as a concept artist, but on this movie, there were other concept artists. I came in and I looked at some stuff, but they were trying to do something so close to what’s on the comics that they really leaned on what had been done by Duncan [Fegredo] and me in the comics.”
David Harbour stars as the character in the new film which also boasts Ian McShane, Milla Jovovich, Daniel Dae Kim, Sasha Lane, and Sophie Okonedo.
Hellboy is set for a January 11, 2019 release.
