Guillermo del Toro’s twoHellboymovies are modern classics in the superhero/monster genre.Hellboy (2019)was a valiant effort to resurrect the franchise, but it simply lacked all the color, texture, and detail that made del Toro’s big screen adaptation of Mike Mignola’s best-selling comic so unique. Del Toro has gone on to have massive success and widespread critical acclaim since makingHellboy 2: The Golden Armyin 2008. But many fans (and del Toro himself) are still dying to see Ron Perlman return to his signature role as the charming, cherry-red cambion Anung Un Rama aka Hellboy, one last time, to fulfill the promise of Hellboy 3.
Sadly,according to del Toro himself, the last glimmer of hope for a third and final chapter in hisHellboysaga, appears to have disappeared for good. With yet another swift reboot of the character coming later this year inHellboy: The Crooked Man, the many die-hard Perlman fans who are still clinging to the notion of closure for this beloved series in 2024, are likely fighting for a lost cause. But for now, let’s just briefly examine the case on behalf of all the fans, for why, despite the numerous roadblocks to production over the years, we still deserve to see Guillermo del Toro’sHellboytrilogy completed once and for all.
There are obviously a multitude of practical and financial concerns that have held back production on a third Pearlman Hellboy movie all this time. Del Toro has said as much himself,“Every Hellboy movie is a huge struggle”. The technical wizardry and painstaking design that brings the universe ofHellboycrackling to life is not easy to pull off. The hellspawn hound Sammael who Hellboy faces off against in the original 2004 film was considered a high watermark of technical brilliance in the modern monster movie canon, despite the movie’s relatively modest budget.Hellboy 2: The Golden Armyfeatures the deepest and most diverse menagerie of monsters del Toro has even put on screen. The world ofHellboyis colorful, ancient, and frequently subterranean. Whether it be the rain-soaked labyrinth that leads to the bustling caverns of the troll market, or the derelict rail-yard where the elven King Balor sits upon his throne as golden leaves drift down from the human world that he once ruled over. There is a high creative and financial price to pay for achieving this level of imaginative imagery on screen, through the use of practical in-camera effects.
What made delToro’sHellboymoviesspecial was their particularcombination of fairy tale tropes, deep mythological imagery, pulpy action/adventure storytelling, slapstick comedy, and Lovecraftian horror elements. This eclectic stylistic recipe made both films (and del Toro’s Blade 2 for that matter) feel utterly distinct, compared to most of their contemporary big-budget superhero counterparts atDCandMarvel. Like most del Toro’s stories, the Hellboy films follow a group of outcasts. Hellboy, Liz, Abe Sapien, and the rest of the non-humans at the B.R.P.D. are considered outsider oddities in the world, and they are shunned by human society, whom they consistently protect from the forces of evil.HellboyandHellboy 2: The Golden Armydeal with themes of self-acceptance, mortality, and the essential beauty of imperfection. They are also full-blown creature feature extravaganzas that gave del Toro and his team of artists carte blanche to unleash their monster-crazy, Ray Harryhausen-inspired pulp sensibilities into a classic globe-trotting adventure story.
Hellboy 3 Possibilities
There are several story components that are left open-ended inHellboy 2: The Golden Army.For one, Liz travels makes a deal with the angel of death in order to to save Hellboy’s life being mortally wounded by Prince Nuada’s spear. Before granting her wish, the angel of death warns Liz about Hellboy’s true purpose on earth, “it is his destiny to bring about the destruction of the earth… not now, not tomorrow, but soon enough”. This prophecy of doom from the winged god of death was more than a foreboding premonition. And the mural that appears on the floor of the angel of death’s chamber, symbolizing Hellboy as the harbinger of the apocalypse, was no accident. Knowing, this makes the final moments ofThe Golden Army,in whichLiz reveals to Hellboy that she is pregnant with not one but two of his children, all the more interesting to consider.
The specific plot points for a proposed thirdHellboymovie have remained vague over the years, but within tidbits that del Toro has revealed in interviews, Hellboy 3 would have been the darkest chapter of the trilogy by far. The third movie would have been truly epic in scale, and would have featured Hellboy being forced to come to terms with his predestined fate as the unwilling agent of the apocalypse. By the end of del Toro’s Hellboy 3, fans would have learned the truth about Hellboy’s hellspawn origins, and the inescapable darkness of his destiny.
Del Toro has repeatedly said that Hellboy 3 would require a significantly larger budget than either of the previous two movies. Imagining a Hellboy movie that is even more prodigious in scale and baroque in its design thanThe Golden Armyis a dizzying thought, and one that many fans are still praying to see come to fruition.
Here’s Hoping
Bringing a character likeHellboyto life on screen is no easy feat. Making a proper adaptation ofMignola’scomic that does justice to his vividly-realized world and all the colorful characters that inhabit it, will always present massive practical challenges. There are more memorable monsters and unique pieces of physical art and set design in any given frame of the troll market sequence fromHellboy 2: The Golden Armyalone, than there are in the entirety of most multi-hour fantasy series. The sense of visual imagination and the sheer filmmaking prowess required to achieve this level of world-building is nothing short of world-class. It takes time, talent, money, and no small amount of creative freedom from a major studio to pull it off. Complaining that del Toro and Perlman owe it to the fans to see the completion of the trilogy through to the end, sounds more than a little entitled. However, this extremely loyal fan base does still deserve to see del Toro and Perlman close the loop on the Hellboy story that they started back in 2004. Imagine, for example, if, after completingThe Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Peter Jackson was somehow unable to complete the trilogy withReturn of the King. That would be simply unacceptable.
Realistically, at this point, del Toro has moved on to making his other long-gestating dream projects likePinocchioand his upcoming adaptation ofFrankenstein. Perlman may no longer have the patience for the extensive seven-hour makeup and prosthetics routine that he had to undergo to assume his signature role. The overwhelming creative and financial ambition of the project that del Toro had in mind for Hellboy 3, combined with the inevitable passage of time, left the possibility for a thirdHellboymovie, starring Perlman and directed by del Toro, at slim to none. But still in a perfect world, or even just a better one, Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman’sHellboywould have gotten the proper send-off he deserved years ago. Because fans deserve to see the big red demon take on the legions of hell one last time. Maybe, we live in a timeline where there is still enough time, creative energy, and financial support to get Hellboy 3 to the finish line. Here’s hoping.
