Trivia / Hellboy II: The Golden Army

• Acting for Two: Or three in this case. Doug Jones plays Abe Sapien, The Angel of Death and Chamberlain.
• Actor-Shared Background: Luke Goss (Prince Nuada) has a twin in real life, much like the character he plays in this movie.
• Adaptation First: A curious case. In the intro of The Stom and The Fury, a two-part saga released between 2010-2011, Mike Mignola notes that The Golden Army (released in 2008) adapts many of its plot beats (world of the fae sickened with the world of Men, an extremist kills the King of Fae and starts a war by summoning a highly dangerous, unstoppable supernatural force and only Hellboy can stop them) despite coming out a couple of years before. He justifies that he and Guillermo Del Toro were often sharing notes during the production of these films so it's possible that Del Toro based this movie on some of Mignola's ideas for The Storm and The Fury.
• Cameo Prop: The damaged mask of Kroenen from the first film can be seen in a glass case at the B.P.R.D. Headquarters.
• The Cast Showoff: Seth MacFarlane studied German back in high school, so that he managed to show off a convincing German accent for Johann Krauss, in spite of not being a native speaker.
• Channel Hop: A rare film example; switched from Sony Pictures to Universal. This was due to Revolution, who produced the first film and had an exclusive deal with Sony, had folded at the time.
• Fake Nationality: American Seth MacFarlane voices over German Johann Krauss.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Abe is now voiced by his actor, Doug Jones, rather than David Hyde Pierce. Pierce felt Jones' performance was strong enough that there was simply no need to hire a separate voice actor. The difference was practically unnoticeable, since Pierce had only been cast in the first place because some executives thought Jones wasn't a big enough "name", and he'd been mimicking Jones' performance anyway.
  • All of the voice actors from the first movie were replaced with cheaper alternatives in the Hungarian dub, with the exception of Bruttenholm in the intro. This lead to Hellboy sounding a good 20 years younger.
• The Other Marty: Thomas Kretschmann, who's actually German, was the first choice for Johann Krauss and, before being replaced by Seth MacFarlane, actually recorded some lines. Del Toro felt however that Kretschmann's voice and the mechanical sound effects of Johann's suit did not mesh well. Instead, he was amazed by MacFarlane's versatility and pleased to know he actually studied German.
• Real-Life Relative: Blake Perlman (Ron's daughter) can be seen as the reporter in the gray sweater interviewing Hellboy outside the auction house.
• Scully Box: Brian Steele, who portrayed Wink, wore ten-inch stilts (going from his already towering 6'7" frame to 7'3") while in the Wink suit.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Very early on, the original plot for the film involved awakening Titans from the four corners of the Earth and a new BPRD agent joining the team. Del Toro eventually decided on doing a story about a rebel elf prince trying to lead a rebellion against mankind, though the "new BPRD agent" eventually made it in with Johann Kraus. Curiously, del Toro would release Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans in 2021, which may have been a recycling of this premise.
  • Charlie Hunnam was actually del Toro's first choice to play Nuada. However, Nuada's design looked too extreme on him so Luke Goss was cast instead. Hunnam would later work with del Toro in Pacific Rim and Crimson Peak.
  • According to Hellboy 2: The Art of the Movie, while conceiving the idea of an unstoppable clockwork army, Del Toro considered calling them "The Clockwork Army" or "The Armageddon Warriors." One day, he looked to the side of his writing desk and saw his copy of The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and decided that "Golden Army" would work just fine.
  • Christopher Lee was originally offered the role of King Balor.
  • The film originally ended with a Sequel Hook involving Roderick Zinco (from the comics) obtaining Kroenen's severed head, traveling to a secret Nazi safehouse in the Arctic, attaching it to a massive robot body, and Rasputin's ghost manifesting before them. It was included as a motion comic on the Golden Army DVD.
  • The role of Manning was originally intended for Larry Miller when Jeffrey Tambor was unavailable.
  • One idea del Toro had was Hellboy facing the classic versions of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Wolf Man.
  • Hellboy III, which has sadly been confirmed dead by del Toro in a February 2017 interview after a long time in Development Hell.
  • Rupert Evans was unable to reprise the role of John Myers as he'd been cast in a play in London. Myers was Reassigned to Antarctica to explain his absence.
• The concept art designs of the movie's various monsters, from illustrators Mike Mignola and Wayne Barlow are drastically different from the final product.
  • A pair of monsters called "The Howling" and "Berserker" shows up in the storyboards, but not in the film. The former is a weird-looking abomination with a Belly Mouth containing More Teeth than the Osmond Family while the latter is a spike-covered brute with six tiny eyes.
  • Mr. Wink the troll is a lot skinnier than his eventual onscreen counterpart. He's also pale-skinned and furry, for some reason, until he get's a redesign to complete the "Big Guy, Little Guy" with his boss, Nuada.
  • Same goes for the eponymous Golden Army who's supposed to be more slender, but Del Toro requested a re-design based on Faberge Eggs, with their onscreen versions unfolding from slumber like a hatching egg. (which actually looks cooler that way)
  • Lastly, a minor example, but Hellboy's "Big Baby" Hand Cannon was originally supposed to have a logo with a smoking baby on its side.

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