For a very long time, it looked like we would get a third
Hellboy movie from Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman. That didn't happen for a number of reasons, and it quickly became apparent that a reboot was in the works instead. Early on, we heard that creator Mike Mignola was attached to work on the screenplay and while Andrew Cosby received sole credit, it seems he was involved from start to finish.
During a recent chat to promote
Hellboy's release on Digital and Blu-ray (it arrives in stores today), I asked Mignola about his role in crafting the screenplay and he went into detail about the long journey this iteration of Big Red took to get to the big screen.
"I was basically contacted and they said, 'We're going to do another film and this is the storyline we're going to do.' They always had in mind that they were going to do the Wild Hunt storyline. I got a really rough breakdown, not a script, of what they wanted to do and I went in on that right away and said, 'Well, if you're going to do this storyline, lose this piece, add this piece, move this piece, cut this piece' and then it just went on really for years tinkering with that. You know, do we add this character, is Abe Sapien going to be in it?
"It must have been, God knows, dozens and dozens of versions of the script and at one point, I did step in with Christopher Golden who has written novels with me before, we stepped in and wrote a couple of drafts of the screenplay and then it went back to Andrew [Cosby]. I've been involved so much at so many different stages and I would walk away from it for months and then come back in and give my notes again. It's hard to say what I did and didn't do but it was a long process of getting the script we eventually got. In fact, between shooting in the UK and Bulgaria, I had three or four days sitting in an office with Andrew and worked on the script yet again and did rewrites literally the day before we were shooting stuff so, you know, it just got worked on a lot!"
I also asked the legendary comic book creator about the casting of Daniel Dae Kim as Major Ben Daimio. As you may recall, fans were not happy when Ed Skrein was chosen to play the character, and both Lionsgate and director Neil Marshall took that on board and went in a comic-accurate direction.
As you might expect, Mignola was a fan of the decision and believes it was handled the right way.
"That is exciting. You never realise how many people out there have actually read the comics. I always assumed that people have never seen them, especially when you start talking about a film adaptation. I knew we'd get compared to the Del Toro version but I didn't realise how adamant fans were and how many fans who were really vocal would come from the comic world. That was great and I'm glad we were able to address that situation early on and without too many problems."
We'll have much more from our interview with the
Hellboy creator for you later today. Don't forget that the movie is now available to buy on Digital and DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K Blu-ray.