Hellboy (2019) (1 Viewer)

[benbess]

Yikes. I think I'm going to skip this.

 

[steve jaros]

I saw Hellboy (IMAX) yesterday and IMO ... it isn't nearly as bad as the press has described it. I was reasonably entertained throughout. If you liked Ron Perlman's take on Hellboy in the 2004 and 2008 films, IMO the new actor captures his spirit pretty well.

The plot was not convoluted, it was easy to follow. And I liked the main villains - Milla Jovovich looked hot as always as an ancient witch and the Baba Yaga character was scary and icky. The SFX looked very good in the IMAX presentation.

Heck, I liked it better than Aquaman, if that means anything.

Overall, I was glad I saw Hellboy as an A-list selection. IMO, it fits right in artistically with the 2004 and 2008 movies.

FWIW, my take is that of someone who likes comic book movies though has never been in to comic books. I haven't read a comic book in over 40 years, and never had heard of the Hellboy character until the 2004 movie came out. So I'm not someone privy to the details of how the character is portrayed in books, etc.

Also, FWIW, I am NOT an overwhelming fan of the 2004 and 2008 Hellboy movies. I saw them during their original theatrical runs back then, and while i did LIKE them, i do not regard them as classics or anything of the sort. IMO, there has been some unwarranted positive retrospective reappraisal with both, because GDT has become such a big artistic force over the past decade.

Bottom line: If you liked the first two Hellboys, I think you will like this one too.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I'm going to see this as an A-List selection, but I'm not in the hurry to do so because it's not playing at my local AMC theater.

 

[Tino]

not exactly excited about it

Heard ya the first time.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Just found this floating around Facebook. As far as I can tell, the original source is MovieWeb.

Seriously?

I find it hilarious that they're willing to show the film, but not to put the accurate name on the marquee.

 

[TravisR]

I remember when Kick-Ass came out, the screens above the doors said "Kick-A**". Looking at the above, I guess I should be glad that they didn't call it Kick-Butt.

 

[Edwin-S]

What makes it even funnier is the rating is plainly given as an 'R'. So an 'R' movie with a G-rated name. Seriously, people have some weird ass morality rules.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

What makes it even funnier is the rating is plainly given as an 'R'. So an 'R' movie with a G-rated name. Seriously, people have some weird ass morality rules.

I guess the rationale would be that you have to be 17 to see the movie but everyone can see the title on the marquee.

Still doesn't make sense. Would these people insist that their preacher talk about "heck"?

 

[dpippel]

Wow, looks like the Hellboy reboot is done with it's theatrical run at only $21.9 million domestic and $18.1 million international. Even though the production budget is estimated at a svelte $50 milion, that is absolutely TERRIBLE box office. Looks David Harbour won't have to worry about wearing those uncomfortable prosthetics ever again:

https://movieweb.com/hellboy-remake-2019-box-office-run-ends-bomb/

 

[Malcolm R]

I don't feel too sorry for Lionsgate. Many fans of the franchise wanted to see del Toro's sequel, so they avoided this film like the plague, and it wasn't good enough on its own to attract a new audience.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Many fans of the franchise wanted to see del Toro's sequel, so they avoided this film like the plague, and it wasn't good enough on its own to attract a new audience.

The problem with this result is that it will be interpreted by the suits as "People don't want Hellboy." It should be, "People didn't want this Hellboy"; they should just pretend this film never happened and make Del Toro's third installment. But that won't happen. This is the end of the run of Hellboy on film.

Oh well. At least we got two great films out of it.

 

[dpippel]

The problem with this result is that it will be interpreted by the suits as "People don't want Hellboy." It should be, "People didn't want this Hellboy"; they should just pretend this film never happened and make Del Toro's third installment. But that won't happen. This is the end of the run of Hellboy on film.

Yep. Hollywood has ALWAYS had a difficult time understanding the difference between people disliking a film because the FILM sucks, and people disliking it because of the material. I agree that Hellboy is done, unless they can somehow get del Toro and Perlman to do #3. Not likely at all.

 

[Malcolm R]

Yep, they just look at raw sales, rather than any kind of context.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I agree that Hellboy is done, unless they can somehow get del Toro and Perlman to do #3.

Why would they even try to ask them to do that at this point? I mean, I would, but I don't have the resources to fund a major motion picture.

Even if they would do it, Del Toro's third movie would probably cost way more than this one did, and would consequently need to make way more to generate profit. So the numbers this one generated won't inspire anyone to fund that.

Universal could have made the third one for release in 2010/11 or so. They didn't, because they saw The Golden Army underperform and assumed, without context, that audience interest in Hellboy was gone. They didn't take into account their own stupidity of releasing it a week before The Dark Knight, which everyone expected to be a massive hit that ended up exceeding those expectations. Golden Army made 45.5% of its total gross on the first weekend not because people didn't like the movie, but because The Dark Knight was next and it sucked all the air out of the room, particularly for comic book action films. Universal was able to succeed opposite The Dark Knight by programming Mamma Mia! there, which was targeted squarely at a different audience and was therefore able to counterprogram, but Hellboy never had a chance to hold up against it.

I'd been saying for months before it was released that this was going to happen and that Hellboy should move. I still think it could have done better in a different release window. But Universal didn't see that. They just saw Hellboy be extremely front-loaded and almost definitely lost money on it and made the decision to be done because that made more sense than acknowledging that they had mishandled the release of the film.

Then a new team of producers at Lionsgate comes along and makes a reboot which no one asks for and by most accounts I've seen wasn't liked by the small group of people who did go see it. In order to realize that they should finance Del Toro's movie instead, they would have to understand where they went wrong with this film. There's about as much chance of that happening as there was of Universal admitting to mishandling Golden Army.

So it's over.

 

[dpippel]

Why would they even try to ask them to do that at this point?

So it's over.

That's why I said "not likely at all" in my previous post. Although, we can always hold out a *little* hope, since I do believe that del Toro and Mike Mignola still have a very good relationship. Like you though, I don't think the funding would ever materialize after Golden Army and the disastrous Harbour reboot, even if some very powerful people pitched the idea. It's dead, Jim.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Maybe if one of us wins a ridiculously generous lottery and get enough money to be independently wealthy for the rest of our lives we can pay it. Or if we find a lamp with a wisecracking genie in it and can make three wishes, the existence of it can be one of them.

Oh wait....that last hypothetical is in the wrong current thread.

 

[Malcolm R]

The problem with this result is that it will be interpreted by the suits as "People don't want Hellboy." It should be, "People didn't want this Hellboy"; they should just pretend this film never happened and make Del Toro's third installment. But that won't happen. This is the end of the run of Hellboy on film.

That's why I said "not likely at all" in my previous post. Although, we can always hold out a *little* hope, since I do believe that del Toro and Mike Mignola still have a very good relationship. Like you though, I don't think the funding would ever materialize after Golden Army and the disastrous Harbour reboot, even if some very powerful people pitched the idea. It's dead, Jim.

Not done after all. Another reboot incoming. No del Toro, but with a script supposedly written by Mike Mignola (with Christopher Golden) based on The Crooked Man story.

https://deadline.com/2023/02/hellboy-crooked-man-details-plot-production-millennium-efm-1235264086/

 

[Jake Lipson]

Not done after all. Another reboot incoming.

I have to admit that when I logged on and saw the notification that you had quoted my post in a Hellboy thread, I was confused for a second.

Well, that's certainly not the lesson I expected them to take away from the box office of the 2019 version.

I don't want to prejudge any movie before they've even shot anything. Maybe this could be good. We simply don't know yet. But I didn't come to Hellboy through the comics. I came to Hellboy through Del Toro's movies. So the movie that I want to see is still Del Toro's third one. Since we're clearly not getting that, I don't know how interested I am in this one.

 

[Malcolm R]

But I didn't come to Hellboy through the comics. I came to Hellboy through Del Toro's movies. So the movie that I want to see is still Del Toro's third one.

Same here. The producers don't seem to understand this. Either that, or they're unable or unwilling to pay the fee needed to hire del Toro, or give him the budget he'd likely request.

But like the producers of the Terminator films, apparently they're going to just keep trying anyway.

 

[Jake Lipson]

From the article Malcom linked above:

Comic Hellboy: The Crooked Man debuted in July 2008 to correspond with the cinema release of Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

There is some irony In the fact that they are now adapting a comic which was timed for the release of the last movie that fans actually requested without the team that made that movie.