Originally published December 23, 2018. Updated July 19, 2024.
Last week we got the first trailer for Lionsgate’s Hellboy movie, with Stranger Things star David Harbour taking on the role of the Dark Horse Comics character for an R-rated reboot of the property following Ron Perlman’s two outings under director Guillermo del Toro.
As we saw with the trailer, the new film will be very different from del Toro’s movies, and now Hellboy creator Mike Mignola has been explaining to IGN how Harbour’s version of the character differs from what we saw with Perlman.
“[It’s] a little bit more dramatic. There’s a different edge. [Ron Perlman] was very smooth as Hellboy, and there’s a whole different love interest vibe with Ron’s thing. Ron was almost playing this kind of old adolescent. And Harbour plays a grittier Hellboy, and a bit more explosive, emotionally. It’s hard to explain, but it is a very different take. The beauty is, both of them, in their own way, feel like Hellboy. It’s almost like they’re just tipped it in two different directions. There’s something much gnarlier about David’s Hellboy.”
“In the del Toro films, Hellboy is kind of penned up, and kept secret, and that is not what we have here [in the upcoming film],” he continued. “This is truer to the comic, in that Hellboy’s been out in the world. He’s not a top-secret, hidden away guy. He’s an out-there-in-the-world, functioning, working adult. So you’ve got that working stiff, been there, done that vibe with Harbour, that you just couldn’t have with Ron because it was played so differently.”
SEE ALSO: Hellboy images feature Milla Jovovich’s Blood Queen and more
Are you looking forward to the new Hellboy movie? What did you make of the first trailer? Let us know in the comments below…
Hellboy is back, and he’s on fire. From the pages of Mike Mignola’s seminal work, this action-packed story sees the legendary half-demon superhero (David Harbour, “Stranger Things”) called to the English countryside to battle a trio of rampaging giants. There he discovers The Blood Queen, Nimue (Milla Jovovich, Resident Evil series), a resurrected ancient sorceress thirsting to avenge a past betrayal. Suddenly caught in a clash between the supernatural and the human, Hellboy is now hell-bent on stopping Nimue without triggering the end of the world.
Hellboy is set for release on April 12th 2019 sees Neil Marshall (Game of Thrones) directing Stranger Thingsstar David Harbour in the lead role alongside Ian McShane (American Gods) as Professor Bruttenholm, Sasha Lane (American Honey) as Alice Monaghan, Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil) as the Queen of Blood, Daniel Dae Kim (Hawaii Five-O) as Major Ben Daimio and Penelope Mitchell (The Vampire Diaries) as Ganeida.
