Hellboy

The extras of Seth Macfarlane dubbing Johann Krauss are a joy to behold:

Seth Macfarlane is a genuinely good actor and an amazing voice actor. Apparently in table readings for stuff he does, he flips between the different characters he voices almost effortlessly. He's just not a very good writer.

edited 13th May '17 8:34:29 AM by Zendervai

You know, I re-read the Darkness Calls-Wild Hunt-Storm and the Fury trilogy that deals with the Queen of Blood Nimue and a funny realization came up to me. That entire storyarc ends up (perhaps on purpose, given Del Toro's and Mignola's relationship) echoing Hellboy II: The Golden Army in several ways (considering this was released more or less simultaneously).

The core conflict is roughly the same (i.e the magical creatures are dying out and must do something about it). Gruagach, the fallen elf desperately trying to exterminate the human world, is basically the comic's Nuada.

Gruagach even kills the King of Elves much like Nuada kills his own father. They both also deal with the release of ancient, forsaken forces to make war (The Golden Army and Nimue herself).

It's curious to note that the major clusterfuck of Wild Hunt-The Storm and the Fury that has Nimue as the central antagonist is that both the Queen and King of fairy creatures are dead, and now there's a Succession Crisis that no one knows who must get the crown to save the fae from their gradual extinction: Hellboy or Nimue?

I say curious because Hellboy II inadvertedly (or perhaps not?) sets up this exact same conondrum: By the end of Hellboy II, the entire Elven royal family is dead (King Balor and his two sons, all dead), so there is no King of Elves in the cinematic universe either. Which could lead to the same crossroads the comics go (Hellboy and Nimue being the primary candidates for the crown).

The theory that this reboot will be a soft sequel seems to make an eerie amount of sense with that in mind.

Casting news! Milla Jovovich has joined the project as the main villain, aka the titular Blood Queen.

Which, yeah, we already knew it but ''Rise of the Blood Queen" was officially confirmed to be the title a few weeks ago.

edit: Oh, and Ian McShane has been cast as Professor Broom, I don't think that's been mentioned.

edited 8th Aug '17 3:14:55 PM by LE0Night

Gotta say, if nothing else, the cast is at the very least incredible.

The new movie-B.P.R.D. will apparently consist of Abe Sapien, Alice Monaghan and Ben Daimio. King Arthur, Merlin, Baba Yaga, and Gruagach will also be making appearances, according to a purported script leak.

edited 14th Aug '17 4:17:26 PM by LE0Night

So that basically confirms they are adapting The Wild Hunt.

The madmen.

Is that a very good story or a very bad story to adapt?

edited 14th Aug '17 7:10:25 PM by TargetmasterJoe

A bit of both. It's one of Hellboy's finest stories, but it's also one that seems like a very strange choice for a first film, as The Wild Hunt is essentially (followed by The Storm and the Fury and HIH) the gran finale of Hellboy in several ways.

It's like starting a Sherlock Holmes movie franchise with The Final Problem.

I mentioned this problem last page.

I don't necessarily see it as a huge problem. Hellboy presumably won't die in this movie, but if they're setting up for a trilogy (as is their Hollywood wont), then there's a lot of lore and flashbacks they could rope in over the course of the sequel they probably want— including any possible BPRD/Abe Sapien spinoffs. And Hellboy's death could be a pretty powerful moment to end on, so I can see why someone involved might want it— to have that big moment of closure ahead of you is pretty tempting, creatively speaking.

And then they could do Hellboy in Hell.

edited 14th Aug '17 9:02:36 PM by Unsung

Alice has now been cast so it looks like the leak may have been legit.

I don't necessarily see it as a unconquerable issue but I do see it as an issue. Those arcs generally work so well because they were built up on a lot of previous stories and beats; It's the type of arc where everything clicks together because it's the payoff to a entire lifetime worth of build-up.

I'm finding kind of bitterly ironic that "final trilogy" of Wild Hunt, Storm and the Fury and HIH would be much more suited to a third Del Toro film (particularly since Hellboy II: The Golden Army has a lot of the themes of those three foreshadowed in it) but we will never get that.

But I'm speaking as someone mildly obsessed with Hellboy, so my judgement may be clouded.

Major Ben has been recast. You've probably already heard everything about it but just for posterity; he was initially set to be played by Ed Skrein (Ajax from Deadpool) which rightfully got some people a bit miffed, and to his massive credit, when Ed realized that his character was originally Japanese, he very gracefully stepped down from the role. Our new Ben: Daniel Dae Kim.

Who, for further posterity, is admittedly not Japanese either, but is at least Asian-American like Daimio, and is a great actor, as a plus. It's a start.

For the record, the character is actually Asian-American.

That's what I mean— both are Asian-American, but Daimio is Japanese-American rather than Korean-American.

"Thanks for the photoshoot, pal. This just got a whole lot more interesting."

(It's a first look at David Harbour as Hellboy.)

edited 14th Sep '17 5:54:42 AM by TargetmasterJoe

Bump (since apparently nobody saw the last post *grumble* *grumble* *grumble*).

Ed Boon does some comparing and contrasting among the Hellboys.

Didn't know there was a reboot =O

Never seen/don't remember him from any of Harbour's works before. Is he any good?

Dang, Sheriff Hopper got cut.

It's hard to say how I feel about this, though. I kind of loved the more stylized makeup they had for Ron Perlman— but that's Ron Perlman, so I don't want to feel like I'm not giving David Harbour a fair shake.

edited 14th Sep '17 7:00:21 AM by Unsung

I like this design. It's not as good as the Ron Perlman one (the Right Hand of Doom in particular feels a bit small), but it's overall pretty great.

As much as I think Harbour!Hellboy looks kickass, I'll freely admit that the mullet will take some getting used to.

Then again, they did say this would be a more hardcore R-rated take on Hellboy, right? Because this design does evoke just that: a more hardcore Hellboy.

I'm just surprised we're seeing this already. I thought they'd save it for some big event like New York Comic Con at the earliest. But hey, I ain't complaining.

EDIT:

Does it? When he's wearing the jacket, it looks appropriately oversized IMO. (P.S. Apparently this photo showed up on Harbour's Twitter earlier, but later got deleted.)

edited 14th Sep '17 8:55:52 AM by TargetmasterJoe

It may be just perspective, but it feels undersized compared to this◊.

Pearlman's wasn't that large either; if anything, this one looks bigger proportionately.

Damn that sentence came out wrong...

edited 14th Sep '17 6:18:52 PM by Eldritcho

It looks smaller proportionately. It's probably larger *factually*, because the Ron Perlman Hellboy wasn't this jacked.

But Ron had the right personality, the body language. It's a big set of giant rock fingers to fill.

edited 15th Sep '17 12:11:29 AM by Unsung