Ron Perlman‘s last appearance as Hellboy was over 15 years ago, and a lot has occurred since then. Nonetheless, Perlman is open to reprising the role in the future. He’s doing it because he wants to please the fans, not because he wants to reprise the part.
Perlman commented in a discussion with The Independent, “Am I eager to do Hellboy 3? No, I’m 71 f***ing years old.” “We owe this to the fans… and we should give it to them because it would be an epic conclusion. So [Guillermo del Toro], if you’re reading, I’m not done pounding you to get this f**king thing done,” he then went on to say.
Last year, Perlman and del Toro teamed on the film Nightmare Alley, which is based on the novel of the same title. Perlman plays Bruno, a good-hearted former strongman who runs across Bradley Cooper’s Stan Carlisle while on the run.
Hellboy was released in 2004 and was followed by Hellboy: The Golden Army in 2008, both authored by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. Both films garnered favorable reviews from reviewers, with the sequel receiving an Academy Award nomination. There have been talkings regarding a third Hellboy picture since then. No formal statements, however, were ever made. Regardless of the 2019 remake, Perlman, del Toro, and Mignola have all voiced a desire to return to the property.
The revival stars David Harbour as the eponymous superhero, who battled Vivienne Nimue, the Blood Queen. On a $50 million budget, the picture made $55.1 million at the box office. Most reviews lambasted Hellboy in 2019, citing poor special effects and a jumbled narrative that sought to compress three novels into a single picture, a complaint Mignola stated during a New York Comic-Con panel.
Hellboy’s performance was later criticized by Harbour, who cited production concerns and similarities to the Marvel Cinematic Universe films as causes in the film’s bad response. “I did what I could do,” he said, “and I’m happy of what I did,” he said, “but ultimately, I’m not in control of a lot of those things.” “The difficulty I have with comic book movies nowadays is that I think, and this is a byproduct of Marvel’s dominance, it’s like chocolate, it’s a flavor,” Harbour continued. “And I’d like to live in a world where there are more flavors than chocolate similarities. As a result, when seen through the lens of the chocolate spectrum, Hellboy performs poorly.”
