Don’t get too excited; this is not confirmation of a third Hellboy movie following on from Guillermo Del Toro’s 2008 Hellboy II, but it is confirmation that it’s not just star Ron Perlman who wants to return to finish the trilogy for the fans.
Fans will recall that when Perlman last suited up in the red, he was only 57 or so, and he’s now 75, but he still wants to come back as Hellboy and finish Del Toro’s story and vision for the character.
Del Toro’s first movie came out in 2004 and was embraced completely by fans across the globe, and just four years later we had a sequel, not to mention the two animated movies in between in 2006 and 2007, which also were part of that world. However, sadly, it was deemed that the second movie, while not a failure at the box office, just didn’t make enough money to justify a sequel, which frustrated Guillermo del Toro, the cast and the fans.
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We got two other Hellboy movies since then, with Hellboy in 2019 putting Stranger Things’ David Harbour in the red and then in 2024, we got Hellboy: The Crooked Man starring Jack Kesy and I liked both – heck, I really liked The Crooked Man – but neither came close to Del Toro’s two movies and both were box-office tanks.
Which means we now have three versions of Hellboy on the big screen, but fans are still clamouring for the end of the original story.
“I was asked to do the one with David Harbour. But the only Hellboy I’m interested in doing is Hellboy 3 — finishing the trilogy we started with Del Toro and the original crew,” Perlman said recently.
“It can’t be jobbed out. You know, call me in five years if we haven’t made Hellboy 3 yet and ask me if I’m ready at 80. And I’ll go, ‘Yeah, alright. As long as I’m covered in rubber, no one will know I’m pissing my pants.’”
Speaking on the Joe Vulpis Podcast, Perlman said: “I thought we owed it to the fans. I still do.”
He said that Del Toro knew what the third movie was and the plan was in place; it just never was actioned: “[Del Toro] knew what the third movie was going to look like.”
“It would have been epic. That’s why it was a shame. And it turns out people really dug the two Hellboy movies. We didn’t make Marvel money.”
Now, speaking on a more recent episode of the Joe Vulpis Podcast, Perlman’s co-star Doug Jones, who played Abe Sapien in the two movies, has said that he too believes they owe the fans the third chapter: “Ron Perlman, Selma Blair (who played Liz, Hellboy’s true love) and I all agree, we’d love to come back,” says Jones, “But… I don’t want anyone to get excited; please don’t get excited. This does not mean that it’s happening. When an actor says ‘I’d love to do it,’ that just means that they’d love to do it and I’d love to do it.
“Ron and I don’t have any power to make this happen [and] Del Toro did try to make it happen at one point and that’s above my pay grade. I have no idea what happened at that level, but for some reason it was nixed.”
The fact that, all these years later, fans are still asking for this movie to be made and we know that the cast are interested in returning and yes, they will likely need some modern effects to help, given how much time has passed, and we also know that the movie was something Guillermo Del Toro really, really wanted to make, and it almost feels like the failure of the two reboots was the fans telling the studio that it wasn’t what they wanted; what they wanted was Del Toro, Perlman, Jones and Blair back to finish the story.
And I couldn’t agree more.
It’ll never happen at this stage, probably, but being a fan means never letting go of hope and that’s exactly why I and many, many others are doing.
So, Hellboy III? Thoughts? I know you have them and I wanna hear ’em all.
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Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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