Hellboy
Hard to believe this one’s eligible isn’t it? We had the same reaction. Of course part of that is that until very recently, there was still some small chance we might eventually get del Toro’s Hellboy III. So even though it’s been over a decade since the last installment in this series, it didn’t feel quite like a bygone era yet.
We get into all the factors that led to them rebooting the franchise instead of carrying on with this continuity, but more relevant to this conversation, we also explore why certain fans of Mike Mignola’s comic boom series always had mixed feeling over how del Toro adapted the material.
We even brought our own preconceived notions into this. It had been a long time since we’d seen either of the original Hellboy movies and we felt pretty certain that the sequel was far superior to this initial outing. Is that still the case? And separate from its deviations from the source material, does this still work as a film on its own terms? Let’s find out!
Other topics include: the way del Toro incorporates and remixes elements from the comic without borrowing anything verbatim, the changes that even Hellboy’s creator thought were an improvement, the pros and cons of shooting in Prague, some really intriguing set up for all of these characters that the film never really explores, creative concessions they made for the PG-13 rating, why del Toro isn’t 100% the victim in Hellboy III never getting made, and much more!