The big red lug is making his big screen return this year, and the second trailer has just been released. Twelve years after the successful first two installments, starring Ron Perlman and directed by Guillermo del Toro, the biggest, baddest, and reddest superhero returns in this reboot with David Harbour in the leading role and director Neil Marshall (“The Descent”) at the helm, making this his first feature film in nine years (after some successful TV directing stints, including some Emmy award nominated work on some epic episodes of “Game of Thrones”).
With the first trailer dropping last December, this new one is still being vague about the story. What is known so far is still rather scant, though according to IMDb: Hellboy, caught between the worlds of the supernatural and human, battles an ancient sorceress bent on revenge. This sorceress, Nimue the Blood Queen, is played by Milla Jovovich, who appears to be tapping into the same semi-goth style and villain-y accent as Cate Blanchett’s “Thor: Ragnarok” villain.
Starring alongside David and Milla is “American Honey” star Sasha Lane as Hellboy’s sidekick Alice, Ian McShane as Professor Bruttenholm (to match David Harbour’s own gruffness), Daniel Dae Kim as Ben Daimio, and Thomas Haden Church as the peculiarly named Lobster Johnson.
Unfortunately, there seems to be no credited input from either Ron Perlman or Guillermo del Toro, who made a splash with the original series, “Hellboy” in 2004 and “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” in 2007, back when superhero films were kind of a different breed.
This was originally written as a sequel, though not offered to the now Oscar-winning del Toro, who wrote both films he directed – Perlman then backed out, refusing to work without the mainstay director. The script eventually turned into an R-rated reboot, following the success of the R-rated superhero film “Deadpool,” proving that a bit of blood and swearing won’t harm films like these at the box office.
Drawing inspiration from the Hellboy comic book series ‘Darkness Calls,’ ‘The Wild Hunt,’ and ‘The Storm and the Fury,’ this new version in the film series hopes to present a bloodier, more mature, yet even more light-hearted tone than the del Toro films.
“Hellboy” will be unleashed in U.S. cinemas and in IMAX on April 12. Watch the new trailer below.
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