For the time being, all thought of a third installment in the fan-favorite Hellboy series from Universal seems to have been put on hold. For a couple of reasons.Although just as well-done as the original, and a box office improvement, Hellboy 2 still fell a bit short of studio expectations. Also, director Guillermo del Toro recently made headlines by announcing that he is now completely booked for the next nine years. As of now, Hellboy 3 is not included amongst his upcoming projects, which means that if he ever returns to complete what he has described as a trilogy--which he has said he wants to eventually do--it will not be for another decade, at which point star Ron Perlman would be nearly 60. Indiana Hellboy, anyone?
At the m0ment, Del Toro is totally immersed in working on The Hobbit with producer Peter Jackson, as well as a follow-up to chronicle the events between that film and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. That's expected to occupy him for the next five years. After that, he turns his sights to some classic monster revamping--namely a long-discussed Frankenstein film and a new take on Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. Then comes a new, "more faithful" (don't they always say that?) version of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, and an adaptation of the forthcoming historical novel Drood by the superb Dan Simmons. And finally, Del Toro's own pet project, an adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness, a seminal work by H.P. Lovecraft.
All exciting projects, to be sure, and Del Toro looks to be positioned as the next Lucas/Speilberg by the end of it. But no HB in sight. Oh, crap.
Del Toro is one of those filmmakers who likes to have a million projects lined up down the road. He's such a geek and is so excited about the POSSIBILITY of a certain type of film, that he talks as if it's already happening when usually, it isn't (not yet, at least). He was speaking with much enthusiasm about Hellboy 3 just a couple of months ago, so I wouldn't be surprised to see it pop back up on his radar after The Hobbit (and Sony will no doubt love to release a film "by the visionary director of The Hobbit").
ReplyDeleteDel Toro also showed a strong Tolkien influence with Hellboy 2, just as he showed a Lovecraft influence with Hellboy 1 (same can be said for Mike Mignola himself). I wonder what influence would emerge in Hellboy 3.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I love Hellboy, what I really wanted to see Guillermo tackle was his 3rd installment of the trilogy he started with The Devil's Backbone and continued with Pan's Labyrinth. Another spanish language ghost story, with ties to the civil war. He had spoken a lot about this before.
ReplyDeleteI think Justin is right, and del Toro tends to talk about a lot of projects that aren't sure things as of yet.
Hmmm...hadn't even heard about that one. Sounds intriguing, though.
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