Director Neil Marshall Is Looking To Utilize Practical Effects For His R-Rated HELLBOY Reboot
Some fans may have expressed concerns that Neil Marshall's Hellboy reboot will rely heavily on CG effects, but fear not, as the director has promised to make his film as practical as possible.
A lot has been made of the decision to reboot the Hellboy franchise. After several unsuccessful attempts to do a proper Hellboy 3, Mike Mignola announced that he and the studio would be moving on from Guillermo del Toro's vision for the character. Many were saddened by this turn of events, but remained optimistic about where the new film will take fans.
When it was announced that Neil Marshall would be taking on directing duties for the reboot, not much was known. The only info that accompanied the announcement was that Stranger Things' David Harbour would be playing the title role of Hellboy, and that it was going to be R-rated.
Now information is slowly trickling out about Marshall's vision for the movie. Chatting with Mick Garris on his Post Mortem Podcast, he revealed that he's looking to do a more practical effects driven movie. “It’s definitely going to be as practical as we can possibly make it. I love to do stuff in camera whenever I possibly can, and use CG as the amazing tool that it is, to enhance or expand upon the world, but not to use it to replace reality, when you can do it [for] real,” Marshall explained.
He also talked about the decision to make the film R-rated, and pointed to recent films like Deadpool and Logan movies that helped make the rating possible. "We’ve been granted permission to do it R-rated, which for me is just like taking the cuffs off," he said. "It’s like, okay, so now we can just make the movie we want to make. It’s not like I’m going to force it to be R-rated, but if it happens to come out that way, just because of my own sensibilities, then fine. And nobody’s going to stop us. So, that’s the main [difference]. And I’m sure, obviously, the success of things like Deadpool and Logan have not hurt that cause. But, also, when you go back the original material, it is kind of bloody, so I’m going to embrace that.”
For more, make sure to check out the Hellboy section of the CBM Index.