HELLBOY: Mike Mignola Says The Neil Marshall-Directed Reboot Won't Be Anything Like A Typical Superhero Movie

HELLBOY: Mike Mignola Says The Neil Marshall-Directed Reboot Won't Be Anything Like A Typical Superhero Movie

We haven't heard too much about the upcoming HELLBOY reboot. But in a new interview, the man responsible for creating the character says don't go in expecting a superhero film.

By L0RDbuckethead - Jun 08, 2018 03:06 AM EST
Filed Under: Hellboy
Source: io9

Mike Mignola has been much more involved with the upcoming reboot than he was in Guillermo del Toro’s previous Hellboy installments. Mignola is co-writing the film with Andrew Cosby (Eureka) and Christopher Golden (Ghosts of Albion) and it will be produced by Lionsgate Entertainment. The film will be directed by Neil Marshall, who fans may know as the director of the underrated horror film The Descent (2005), so he's no stranger to the horror genre.

This past Tuesday, Mignola sat down with the guys at io9 to discuss how the new iteration of the Dark Horse Comics character will differ from how he was portrayed in Del Toro's films. In the interview, Mignola doubles down on the idea of the movie drawing more from the horror genre than ever before, and also says that the upcoming reboot won’t be like the superhero movies that are currently dominating the box office every year.

Well, I mean, if anything, we’re trying to do something very different. Basically, there’s no part of Hellboy that was ever going to be like other superhero movies. And the more Marvel stuff there is, the more DC stuff there is, Hellboy never really feels like—even in the del Toro things—a superhero movie. It’s so much ‘big teams of guys, in costumes, running around and saving the world from big cosmic menace stuff…’ I believe the new movie will feel even less like a regular superhero thing. The idea with this one was to make it play much less like a superhero film, to downplay the superhero elements even more than del Toro did. This one is much more folklore/mythology/horror, and not ‘big team rushing into to do battle with whatever kind of stuff.'


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/pt/f/fc/Hellboy_por_Mike_Mignola.jpg

We already knew the upcoming Hellboy reboot will be rated-R, unlike Hellboy (2004) & Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), so a darker and more serious tone can definitely be expected. Mignola’s point is well taken though: there’s a huge difference in scale and tone between Hellboy and something like Avengers: Infinity War or Wonder Woman, and that gap is only going to grow larger as superhero films continue to raise the stakes with every film released.

Mignola was later asked what he thought the main thing DC and Warner Bros. needed to do in order to translate artist Jack Kirby’s Fourth World to the big screen successfully in the newly-announced New Gods film:

"It’s cool-looking stuff, but I have no idea how you would or should translate that stuff. Granted, I didn’t watch The Inhumans TV show, but with that Kirby stuff, you need a real big budget to do it big enough. I haven’t been a fan of most of the DC stuff either. Part of it is that they aren’t my characters and they seem sillier to me than most of the Marvel characters. So, how do you do the Kirby stuff? I don’t know. It’s… so huge. I think some things just work better as comics than they do as movies. I know, these days, everyone thinks everything needs to be a movie. Some things just work better as comics. The trick is always going to be getting somebody to translate that stuff who understands what works about the original.




How do you feel about Mignola's comments about a darker, more serious Hellboy film? Do you agree with him about the translation of comics to the big screen?

Let us know in the comments section below!





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FromACertainPOV
FromACertainPOV - 6/8/2018, 3:49 AM
So it should be.

Craft me a darkly fantastical world inhabited by the beautifully occult and the gorgeously horrific. Del Toro's world building was so lavish and wonderful, I can't wait to see how this film aesthetically differentiates itself from the first two films.

Show me some art direction and production design.
Vigor
Vigor - 6/8/2018, 3:50 AM
"The trick is always going to be getting somebody to translate that stuff who understands what works about the original."

He's so right

GhostDog
GhostDog - 6/8/2018, 3:50 AM
I like what I'm hearing.
Kumkani
Kumkani - 6/8/2018, 6:02 AM
Oh this should be an interesting thread alright.

I do agree with what he's saying though. I haven't watched any of the Hellboy films in full but they never struck me as the traditional superhero film, so it would be weird if it started to feel like a Marvel or DC film.

There's always gonna be that slight air of pretentiousness that comes across when someone is saying their comic book property wouldn't be like what is mainstream and common now, but for the property it certainly makes sense.
kirbyfan
kirbyfan - 6/8/2018, 10:21 AM
Looking forward to Hellboy, and for the New Gods, get a director that has experience with big epic movies, big epic action, big epic sets, big epic actors, big epic ideas, someone that will remain true to the original characters!

It should be a trilogy of movies, there's an absolutely fantastic amount of story that could be told. The Orion/Kalibak Darkseid relationship, Mister Miracle/Big Barda, The Forever People, Terrible Terpin, and Darkseid/Highfather! Just absolutely awesome material that could easily be several separate movies!

Also very important, absolutely KEEP THE PC INSANITY out of it!
Hardfelt
Hardfelt - 6/8/2018, 5:04 PM
As a HB fan from the get go, I'm really heartened to hear of this direction for the movie and for the involvement of Mignola and Golden in writing it. HB has always inhabited his own folky universe with strong Lovecraftian and Edgar Allen Poe influences, so I hope the design elements incorporate these influences. Excited to see what happens.
breakUbatman
breakUbatman - 6/9/2018, 1:12 AM
Sounds about right. Comic Book character is not synonymous with Superhero.

Hope this is good so we can get us a full BPRD saga.

Follow that up with some American Vampire.

I agree not everything should be a movie but sometimes movies help people discover the original material. Never read Hellboy until the movie came out, now I am such a fan of the character and Mike Mignolia
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