Hellboy: The Crooked Man has had a highly unconventional release, arriving in a handful of counties across the globe before hitting UK cinemas this Friday.
While the movie was never particularly highly anticipated, we'd expected some sort of theatrical release as, with a lower budget, it's possible enough fans would have turned out to make Brian Taylor's reboot a moderate hit.
Instead, it seems the movie may have failed to find a distributor in the U.S. as various VOD platforms are now showing Hellboy: The Crooked Man as being available for pre-order with a Tuesday, October 8 release.
That means it will go up at 12am ET on the 8th but at 9pm PT on October 7. A limited theatrical release is still possible but, as we expected, this movie is largely bypassing the big screen and going straight to Digital (which is the equivalent these days to a direct-to-DVD title).
Whether it's possible for Hellboy: The Crooked Man to make enough money to warrant a sequel is hard to say; as of now, only two reviews have been counted on Rotten Tomatoes: one Fresh, one Rotten.
Talking to Forbes, Hellboy creator and The Crooked Man writer Mike Mignola said, "All my favorite scenes from The Crooked Man are in there. It's exciting for me to look at something and go, 'Oh, that's a whole bunch of stuff I never imagined I'd see onscreen.' All the Hellboy movies are different, they all have their thing."
"They all work to some extent in their own way. I don't want to say this is the best film. All I can say, is that this is the most faithful film. I could [even] say it's my favorite. It’s got some of my favorite Hellboy moments in there."
Regardless of whether this reboot performs well, Mignola believes the door is closed on Guillermo del Toro ever returning to make Hellboy 3 with Ron Perlman.
"I just can't see him coming back to doing Hellboy again. He's got so many other things he's always wanted to do. It's a shame [the trilogy] didn't get finished, but I just don't think it was ever really going to happen. It was kind of a dream thing, but I don't think it was ever realistic. From what I understand, it would have been amazingly expensive, following up two movies that didn't make money."
Stranded in 1950s rural Appalachia, Hellboy and a rookie BPRD agent discover a small community haunted by witches, led by the Crooked Man, a local devil with a troubling connection to Hellboy's past.
Brian Taylor directs Hellboy: The Crooked Man from a script by Mike Mignola and Chris Golden. The cast is led by Jack Kesy as Hellboy, Jefferson White as Tom Ferrell, and Adeline Rudolph playing Bobbie Jo Song. We'll also see Leah McNamara as Effie Kolb, Joseph Marcell as Reverend Watts, Hannah Margetson as Cora Fisher, and Martin Bassindale as the Crooked Man.
Stay tuned for more on Hellboy: The Crooked Man as we have it.