Given that the most recent attempt to bring Mike Mignola's Hellboy to the screen — with David Harbour as the title character — earned a poor $55 million worldwide (against a $50 million budget), it's perhaps surprising to learn that Mignola and others are looking to try again. But it's true!
Originally reported by Discussing Film and since confirmed by Deadline, the latest film will adapt comics tale The Crooked Man. Mignola and Christopher Golden are on script duty and — in possibly a more intriguing development – Brian Taylor, AKA one half of Crank duo Neveldine/Taylor is aboard to direct.
The story will see Hellboy and a rookie BPRD agent stranded in 1950s rural Appalachia. There, they discover a small community haunted by witches, led by a local devil with a troubling connection to Hellboy’s past: the Crooked Man.
In the comic, The Crooked Man was an eighteenth-century miser and war profiteer named Jeremiah Witkins who was hanged for his crimes yet returned from Hell as the region’s resident Devil.
No one is saying yet who will be Hellboy, but the plan is to kick off shooting next month in Bulgaria.
Millennium Films, which made the last version, is hoping that this new one will finally launch a franchise.
"The Crooked Man is a departure from all previous Hellboy films where Mike Mignola, the creator of the comics will finally shepherd an authentic version of his stories and characters in film form," said Millennium Media’s President Jeffrey Greenstein. "This is the first in the series of films that will captivate audiences in familiar (and new) ways. Brian Taylor is an expert across the board, and I couldn’t think of a better person to bring this story to life to show our audience this different and original Hellboy slate of films."
Amidst all this, we still can't help but wonder why no one has leapt at the idea of Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro finally getting to finish his own trilogy…