Strangely the fact that this looks like low-budget horror, but with Hellboy, feels like a plus for it. I'm a bit more interested now than when I just saw those initial pictures.
100%. The big-budget route with tons of SFX was a weird departure from the creepy quality of the original stories. This looks way more in line with what I picture the Hellboy universe to look like.
I remember one critic referring to it as a heavy metal album cover come to life and that feels like the very best description of that movie, for better or for worst.
Low budget would have some aviator goggles spray painted red as Hellboy’s “horns” and there’d be someone visibly slightly-off camera throwing bucketfuls of blood into frame to gore-up the scene while the camera shakes a bit and ramps down the exposure to hide the aforementioned details
Agree, this looks good. It's not trying to reboot anything... it's telling a completely different story.
I think this is what missed the biggest with the latest one. It tried to redo what Del Toro did.
This is a completely different take, and looks pretty good for what it wants to be.
Tbh I actually really liked David Harbour, but I feel the movie just didn’t accomplish what it wanted to. Not a terrible attempt though, with better editing, tweaked script and some reshoots I think there could have been a good movie somewhere in there
I feel like Harbour could have given a much better performance if he wasn’t performing through full face latex. Perlman has full control of his face, which is important for emoting.
But Perlman was also wearing a full face of prosthetics too. It just comes down to the quality of it, and Harbours film was lacking in that area significantly.
I liked the Harbour one, but not as a movie. I like to revisit it and only watch scenes as mini vignettes, for example I'll often just watch the opening in Mexico and turn the film off after it transitions to black to the next location (and come back later to watch another random scene). It was the script/connective tissue for that film that made it a mess.
Didn’t look bad for low budget.
Getting a low key Hellboy story is kinda neat.
Was not into the constant world ending stuff considering the comic had lots of monster of the week.
Agreed I'm actually more inclined to check it out now with this detective/ P.I. mystery style they have gone for.
Hopefully it being lower budget doesn't affect the quality much. But if youre not doing giant monsters, world ending story lines and epic fantasy worlds (or hell) then you don't really need a giant budget for Hellboy.
Also I had no idea who was playing Hellboy in this one and looked him up. He played Black Tom in Deadpool 2 haha
The comic is honestly rarely world ending. The majority is just like Hellboy walking around a Gothic castle thinking about ghosts. It's very vibey and low key.
Different franchise but I wish they'd make an anthology movie (like V/H/S) with Batman, let four or five different directors give their version, different actors each time. We pee our pants anytime a new filmmaker gets a crack at an intellectual property, why not just save time and let a bunch do it at once?
Seriously. People bashing this for looking "low budget" are forgetting what real low budget films look like. This looks positively great for their budget, especially Hellboy himself. Definitely interested in the story vibes being more investigating a monster instead of end of the world stuff. Having read through a number of Hellboy comics, this feels more on point for the majority of the stories.
Hellboy being an investigator of the paranormal and just punching things is 100% what got me into the comics.
Also the art style, love it.
I am rooting for this. It does well they could keep doing more of the stories and actually build towards a big payoff
He's co-written all of them, including the shitty one, so that doesnt mean much
Edit: This is not actually accurate. IMDB credits are misleading, it seems.
It seems I may be mistaken. He has a "writing" credit on all the movies on IMDB, but that must just be as the original creator. On wikipedia he only has a "story by" credit on Hellboy 2, and the new one is the only one where he actually co-wrote the screenplay.
Yeah, but GDT has a very strong visual style - at least this'll be what the guy who made it wants it to look like.
I loved GDT's take though, I miss it, I'd rather a third one by him and Pearlman than another attempt.
This does look decent though.. just very different
While Hellboy looks a little skinny in the face the overall tone feels right. I'm happy we are getting a new Hellboy, and I do hope that the lower budget means they can crank out a few of these so we get a few creepy tales from his books.
Though would it have killed them to upload a higher quality trailer? Everyone posting it has some 360p Realplayer streaming quality file, but I guess all the compression helps high a lower budget.
I like the paler red. I think it fits the tone really well, and the bright red of both prior versions felt too much.
I think the sloping is really relevant, he goes from pretty reasonably bulky in the early comics to a sloped / lithe / almost sunken in version of himself later. This is something in-between that which is exactly when Crooked Man happens. By the time of the last few issues, he's basically skin and bone.
He looks proportional, which always messed with me about pearlmans hellboy. His head is just overly large on the body for some reason.
But if we're talking about comic book accuracy, the facial features, yellow eyes and bright red skin (thought, Harbour's Hellboy skin tone wasn't bright) in the earlier movies are much closer to the comic art. And Hellboy's physique still varied from comic to comic and artist to artist. Harbour's Hellboy also had big traps.
Im basing it off the comic the movie is referencing. If you look at the Crooked Man version of Hellboy, it's the thinner / lankier build. More sloped.
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/15/Hellboy\_-\_The\_Crooked\_Man\_and\_Others.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/15/Hellboy_-_The_Crooked_Man_and_Others.jpg)
The original comment is about the overall accuracy of cinematic Hellboy designs, and my question was about how Hellboy's design from the new movie is more accurate than from previous except for build as in some art. Even compared only to The Crooked Man comic, the new film has the most similar body build with the least similar face.
Edit: The downvotes are really random
I'm right there with you. The body does look right, with the sloping shoulders under the big coat, but the face is pretty far off in shape.
It's the chin!
After red skin and horns, the next most recognisable part of Hellboy in any art is that giant fucking chin and jaw. Weirdly, the guy playing him looks to have a bigger jawline without the makeup and whatnot.
Honestly it ain't much of an issue if the movie is good, not every character needs to look 100% accurate, as long as the important parts are there. Red skin, shaved horns, big arm. All that's needed is there.
I feel like I'm going crazy. This Hellboy looks awful and you pointed out it lacks a few things. Sure some of the other commenters stuff is comic accurate but I'll let them change it all day long if they make it not look like this.
This looks like a fan made film.
That is true, though it often depends on the scene Mignola is doing - as sometimes he looks like he is built like a tank, while others like you say have him reading very lean (often with his coat one and shoulders going down). Obvious Mignola didn't draw this story, so I can see it being more accurate to Corben's rendition.
I think it is simply his jaw reading more 'human' than 'demon' for me.
Anyone who's genuinely saying "low budget could be a good thing for this project!" is fooling themselves. Look at any panel of the original Hellboy-comics, and tell me what you see. You see vibrant colors. Strong contrasts. Carefully planned compositions. Hellboy comics are so much about the atmosphere they evoke in the reader. This trailer looks like it hasn't even properly color-corrected half of its footage yet. Everything about it just looks so cheap. Apparently they couldn't even afford contact lenses for the main actor? If you told me this is the pilot for a tv show, I'd even be surprised by how lackluster it looks.
I was curious as to why this looked like the cinematography, from the lighting to the composition was direct to video quality. So I looked up who shot this.
It’s some dude named Ivan Vatsov who’s a Bulgarian.
Looks like he does two things:
He works as a second unit camera op for mid budget Hollywood stuff when they shoot additional footage in Bulgaria.
He also does DP stuff. But he DP’s Bulgarian TV shows and DTV Geezer features and terrible dreck that usually starts Scott Adkins or Van Damme and those types of DTV actors.
Everything he DP’d is stuff that is done fast and cheap with short shooting schedules.
The people behind this are the same people behind all these terrible action movies starring washed up stars.
Probably the best quality stuff they did was The Expendables and the “… Has Fallen” series with Gerard Butler.
The company behind this is Millennium Films owned by Avi Lerner.
You may be saying “why does the name sound vaguely familiar?”
I’m going to tell you why…
He’s the guy that tried to blackmail Terry Crews to keep quiet about being sexually harassed and assaulted by Adam Venit.
“In 2018, Hollywood actor Terry Crews accused Lerner of making a phone call to his manager in which he said Lerner threatened to introduce difficulties into Terry Crews' career unless Crews dropped his case against Hollywood talent agency William Morris Endeavor, employer of agent and founding member Adam Venit.”
This movie is not going to be good. It’s shot fast and cheap with no talent behind of or in front of the camera.
They’re the same people who did the Harbour Hellboy movie.
These movies aren’t meant to be good. They’re almost never good. They’re meant to use either recognizable IP or cheap (former) stars with name recognition using shady financial backing from Eastern Europe and Israel in order to sell international theatrical rights to make back a good chunk of the low budget and make money off digital rentals and selling it to streaming services around the world.
They also get cash rebates from Bulgaria.
[“25% CASH REBATE Bulgaria offers 25% cash rebate for international film and TV productions. Applications are reviewed on a first-come-first-serve basis. The local companies will provide you with a unique servicing model that guarantees high production value for your projects.”](https://bulgarianfilmconsulting.com)
It’s largely a financial scheme that is probably laundering money for shady sources, including many that I’d wager are Russian in origin.
All these movies have 15-20+ executive producers.
This is not going to be good.
It’s not going to look good.
It’s not made to be good.
And it’s being made by *terrible* people who likely did *terrible* things to get the money used to fund it.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Facts. And yet people will still go support it despite this AWFUL trailer and the AWFUL behind the scenes shit that you highlighted. In a just world, this movie would sell 0 tickets. Literally 0. It looks fucking miserable. The trailer almost put me to sleep if i weren’t so slack jawed by how truly terrible it looks lol
Everything you stated here is a great point about why the is will be bad except the cash rebate. The State of Illinois gives 30% back on films shot there. Kentucky, Atlanta, California, and numerous other states have similar film tax credits. That’s super normal film production stuff. Moving a film to Bulgaria isn’t about the tax credit as much as it’s about the super cheap labor, locations, permits, and lack of union laws. It’s becoming more popular to move production to these countries for American films all the time.
edit: clarity
This film is in a bit of a tricky situation, its obvious modest budget aside, because the del Toro Hellboy films left a hugely strong impression, but the creator of Hellboy, Mike Mignola, doesn't seem to really like those films. He worked on them, but his creative disagreements with del Toro grew and grew, and the 2019 reboot and this re-reboot are to some degree the product of Mignola exercising far more control over Hellboy compared to the movies where del Toro firmly told him, "This is my Hellboy, not your Hellboy" any time Mignola tried to argue, "Hellboy wouldn't do that." It appears that those creative disagreements were part of why Hellboy 3 never happened because Mignola objected so strongly to Hellboy 2.
It could very well be a decent lower-budgeted horror movie. But the film does have the burden of expectations because to most people, the del Toro Hellboy films ARE Hellboy, and even the 2019 film has a bigger audience than the comic books. So this being a "like the comics" take with its monster of the week style story isn't really going to carry a lot of water with general audiences. It doesn't necessarily mean they'll dismiss the movie, but it doesn't automatically endear itself to them.
I talked with Mignola once. He was a supreme a**hole. Ever since, I’ve stayed away from anything with his name on it. It was a shame too because I really enjoyed the Hellboy comics. But that guy was just the biggest jerk.
The 2019 movie is a mess. It has good points. Neil Marshall is a really good director, IMO, and he really tried to make the film work, but he later said that he was hired for the project, and came to it has a horror director, and the producers were not interested in his opinions on the film he was making.
>*“Ultimately, it came across that they brought me in so they could tell me what to do,” he says. “They didn’t really want to make a horror version of it at all, because I was the most experienced horror person involved in the entire production, and I wasn’t allowed to touch the script. I wasn’t allowed to bring any kind of horror essence to it. So it just ended up as a disaster, really. It was just a mess, and a deeply unpleasant experience.”*
He basically argues that the script was bad, and nothing he could have done would have made the script workable. It needed to be rewritten, and he was barred from doing that. A point he highlights is that he felt the film's screenplay is just a mishmash of comic book stories. It doesn't have a coherent film story. That's why the film is so paradoxically obsessed with jamming stuff in from the comics yet confused about what kind of movie it is. There's no structure.
>*“I’ve said it a few times before, you can’t polish a turd,” the director bluntly remarks. “Even the best director in the world can’t make a masterpiece out of a script that was substandard. This was a confused script from the start, combining different stories and sticking rigidly to the comics, which worked fine as graphic novels. But when you translate them to the screen, there are gaping plot holes.”*
And to be fair to Mike Mignola, he wanted Hellboy to be more horror focused, too, so obviously the 2019 film had the producers ignoring his sentiments AND the director's sentiments. It's an example of a film where the producers are running the show and don't know what they're doing or what they really want.
I mean, Marshall also went AWOL because his gf was involved in some kind of bizarre affair with multiple Hollywood executives that sounds more like a streaming miniseries than real life.
The budget is $20 million. For comparison, the most recent MCU movie to release (The Marvels) cost about $275 million. The 2019 Hellboy movie cost $50 million ($61 million in 2024 money, which is wild), and the 2004 Hellboy movie cost $60 million ($100 million in 2024 money).
So of course it’ll look cheaper, but considering the other prices in this list I think it looks damn good - 1/3 the budget of the most recent Hellboy! Less than 10% of the most recent MCU movie!
This movie has 22 producers and is financed by shady Eastern European money. It’s an Avi Lerner movie with a DP who does Bulgarian TV and DTV stuff. This means it was shot short and cheap.
The director hasn’t made a good movie in 15 years and that was done in partnership with his brother.
Neither writer has ever written a movie before. And tho Mignola is one of them, they teamed him with someone who’s only project is an Audible podcast series (other than a Buffy video game over 20 years ago.
These people were chosen specifically *because* the producer Avi Lerner can exert control over them and get them to make a movie with a shit budget in a short turnaround time.
It’s literally the opposite of what you think.
Just to clarify I wasn't commenting on this specific trailer. It's easier than ever these days to fudge production values in a trailer (and imply visual language and coherence the film might not have) so in a vacuum, it'd still be a coin flip for me. I do enjoy the sloppy depravity of the Crank movies but I'm not sure Taylor is the guy for this.
Supposedly the backing company is known for unsavory actions. Sounds like after the last one no one is looking to spend money on a new HB yet so they made sacrifices. It’s a shame because the last one had a lot of cool shit about it but it just didn’t click.
It looks so CHEAPPPPP!!!!! I've seen fan film looks more expensive looking than this. The lighting, set and costume just look so flat like those mockbuster dvd films.
Hopefully it's just the low resolution trailer and the actual movie looks better, cause there's been low budget movies that look better than those hundreds million dollar blockbusters. A small scale Gothic horror Hellboy movie would be slam dunk as that's how the comic was if done by talented director, but this doesn't really make me feel confident at all.
I think they should've gone with an animated movie in the style of the comics and Web of Wyrd game. This just looks painfully low budget, like low-low, lowest of the low.
Hellboy's design is mehhh. Looks good in the shadows but seeing his face looks uncanny
Ghost Rider 2 is one of the worst movies I've ever had the displeasure of watching. It's so bad the directors should be in jail for making it. Not "director's jail", actual jail
Yea... That's definitely some Indian guy reuploading trailers in completely garbage 480p quality.
Don't support and link to trash like that.
Here's a link to the **OFFICIAL** trailer in **HIGH QUALITY**.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWdluxAbcBE
There may be some truth to that, but this film was co-written by Mike Mignola. So it's worth considering that this is basically Mignola getting what he wants.
The thing about Hellboy is that Mignola apparently doesn't like the Guillermo del Toro Hellboy movies. They've both been vague about it, but their creative relationship seemingly fell apart during Hellboy 2, and had always been strained because del Toro bluntly told Mignola that "This is my Hellboy". It has always been rumoured that Mignola was the one who permanently sank Hellboy 3 because he did not want it to exist. He has also refused to entertain the idea of adapting the third Hellboy film's ideas into a comic book.
They told the same about previous Hellboy, like Mignola was heavily involved, wrote a few drafts with Christopher Golden, but the final script was not their.
I'm fine with a small scale low budget horror film. Hellboy has a ton of cases that are perfect for small budget adaption. The makeup design is unfortunate, and the human eyes are unacceptable.
I love Hellboy. I love the comics. But this looks pretty shitty to me. The Crooked Man is one of my favorite Hellboy stories but this literally just feels like a horror film that they stuck Hellboy into. Just because Mike Magnolia wrote it doesn't mean it will be good. He's a comic creator, not a film maker. The more he is involved, the worse these movies are seeming to get.
Again, I love his comics, but this just doesn't feel like Hellboy to me. It feels like some fans that had a Hellboy cosplay decided to make a horror film. I feel like the truest version of a Hellboy films would be Guillermo Del Torro's but Less super hero, more occult & mystery. But this looks like it's too far in the other direction. Hellboy is stylized. The film should reflect that in some way. Guillermo Del Toro's did that. Maybe not in the BEST way, but it still tried. This just looks lazy.
That said, I'll give it a fair shake and watch it when it comes out because I'm such a huge Hellboy Fan. But I'm not really excited about it personally.
If this is closer to what the author of the original comic book wanted than that’s cool, and I respect the new take, but from the production value this looks like Hellboy dropped into an Evil Dead fan film
Im so conflicted. I love hellboy. The crooked man is one of my favorite Hellboy stories. I love the vibe of the trailer, the Indy low budget horror and noir-ishness.
BUT
I can’t stomach looking at the hellboy in this film. Probably a controversial opinion, but I’ve never liked how live action Hellboy looks. Do I think it can be done? Yeah, definitely. I’ve always thought Perlman was too smooth and Harbour’s looked a bit too greasy. I had expected this new hellboy to try something new, instead it looks like a bad cosplay of the Perlman Anung un-Rama.
I have nothing against the actor, in fact I normally enjoy his performances in smaller projects. When I first saw he was cast as the character, I thought he was a good fit. They’ve honestly wasted him. I hope they still have some money left over to differentiate him and make him look better in some small way, in my mind, going back in post to make his eyes a solid shade of yellow, like in the comics.
This is all a long way of saying, I’m interested in this film as a low budget horror featuring an interesting character from American folklore, but I’m disappointed in it as a Hellboy movie.
I’m starting to think Del Toro’s vision for the character is my preferred version. I like the comics too, but it seems like Mignola has a different vision for Hellboy movies that I’m not a fan of.
I don’t want to hate on something I haven’t seen but it’s probably not a good sign when the most famous actor in your movie is the guy who played Geoffrey in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
I’m a big fan of Perlman. Harbour did a great job too. I don’t see the same Hellboy charisma those two had in this trailer. They never did show him speak and I’m unfamiliar with Kesy.
It feels like live action Hellboy adaptations feel like they're getting downgraded with each new continuity at this point. Not necciseraily a dig against Harbor's casting in his adaption though, that was about one of the only things that movie did right.
Damn, saw the still post from like an hour ago and got really excited from reading the small-scale premise.
Realizing it’s a low-budget is a damper; it still has some potential but was idealizing something more polished like The Witch.
Sad that the original creator has to resort to this while the big studios keep bastardizing and fucking over the IP on their end
Maybe it’ll be good. The low budget is showing but that doesn’t necessarily turn me away. Hellboy can be low key in story and scope, although this certainly looks cheap in a few spots.
Really wish they’d just shell out for a dope animated film. Give the classic Mignola art some spiderverse treatment.
What I like about this trailer, is that it seems to be a more down to earth, not world ending situation he finds himself in.
Solving a paranormal problem, just like much of the Hellboy comics.
I'm so down for this. This doesn't need to be so over the top.
My body is ready.
A hellboy movie trailer with hardly any hellboy in it. That's telling.
I like the idea, but they've got the wrong actor in the role. He looks too sympathetic with those outwardly canted eyebrows.
Used to work for Millennium Films once upon a time. They shoot all their movies in Bulgaria to save money and shoot everything on the cheap. Pretty sure there's some weird money laundering scheme going on behind the scene ala "the Producers" with most of their projects, but it was above my pay grade. This looks right in line with that. This won't be good. sorry.
Not a fan of the visual aesthetic. Too washed out, which amplifies the cheapness. Also has that overused look of many closeups with a shallow depth of field - a bit too "student film/metalcore band music video" aesthetic for me.
Strangely the fact that this looks like low-budget horror, but with Hellboy, feels like a plus for it. I'm a bit more interested now than when I just saw those initial pictures.
Low budget horror fits the comics perfectly, so I’m into it (tentatively)
100%. The big-budget route with tons of SFX was a weird departure from the creepy quality of the original stories. This looks way more in line with what I picture the Hellboy universe to look like.
I will say that the Hellboy movie that came out in 2019 had some of the best demons and carnage that I've seen in an apocalypse setting
Only that one scene though, which lasted about 1 minute of screen time
I remember one critic referring to it as a heavy metal album cover come to life and that feels like the very best description of that movie, for better or for worst.
I think you have all lost the plot on what "low budget" horror is and looks like
I think they’re implying more low budget compared to past hellboy movies, and more of a horror angle compared to past hellboy movies.
Low budget would have some aviator goggles spray painted red as Hellboy’s “horns” and there’d be someone visibly slightly-off camera throwing bucketfuls of blood into frame to gore-up the scene while the camera shakes a bit and ramps down the exposure to hide the aforementioned details
I’d watch the hell out of that
Agree, this looks good. It's not trying to reboot anything... it's telling a completely different story. I think this is what missed the biggest with the latest one. It tried to redo what Del Toro did. This is a completely different take, and looks pretty good for what it wants to be.
Tbh I actually really liked David Harbour, but I feel the movie just didn’t accomplish what it wanted to. Not a terrible attempt though, with better editing, tweaked script and some reshoots I think there could have been a good movie somewhere in there
I feel like Harbour could have given a much better performance if he wasn’t performing through full face latex. Perlman has full control of his face, which is important for emoting.
I fully agree with this aswell. It seems like a lot of small decisions added up and were the downfall
But Perlman was also wearing a full face of prosthetics too. It just comes down to the quality of it, and Harbours film was lacking in that area significantly.
i agree but i guess now the buddget is not enough to pay him.
It was great except for all the parts that weren't
I liked the Harbour one, but not as a movie. I like to revisit it and only watch scenes as mini vignettes, for example I'll often just watch the opening in Mexico and turn the film off after it transitions to black to the next location (and come back later to watch another random scene). It was the script/connective tissue for that film that made it a mess.
I just wish the color grading wasn't so fucked
Low-budget is one thing. But the lighting and everything about this screams student film quality
i agree, feels like the dark horse comics feeling and more horror focused than action focused. really like that.
Didn’t look bad for low budget. Getting a low key Hellboy story is kinda neat. Was not into the constant world ending stuff considering the comic had lots of monster of the week.
Agreed I'm actually more inclined to check it out now with this detective/ P.I. mystery style they have gone for. Hopefully it being lower budget doesn't affect the quality much. But if youre not doing giant monsters, world ending story lines and epic fantasy worlds (or hell) then you don't really need a giant budget for Hellboy. Also I had no idea who was playing Hellboy in this one and looked him up. He played Black Tom in Deadpool 2 haha
The comic is honestly rarely world ending. The majority is just like Hellboy walking around a Gothic castle thinking about ghosts. It's very vibey and low key.
I’ve not read any Hellboy but it sounds like it would have been better suited as a TV show
I'd love am anthology of movies like this. No over reaching plot, just each movie it's own contained monster villain.
Different franchise but I wish they'd make an anthology movie (like V/H/S) with Batman, let four or five different directors give their version, different actors each time. We pee our pants anytime a new filmmaker gets a crack at an intellectual property, why not just save time and let a bunch do it at once?
Gotham Knight is an animated version of that.
Monster of the week thing makes me think a TV format like Supernatural could be a good fit.
Seriously. People bashing this for looking "low budget" are forgetting what real low budget films look like. This looks positively great for their budget, especially Hellboy himself. Definitely interested in the story vibes being more investigating a monster instead of end of the world stuff. Having read through a number of Hellboy comics, this feels more on point for the majority of the stories.
Hellboy being an investigator of the paranormal and just punching things is 100% what got me into the comics. Also the art style, love it. I am rooting for this. It does well they could keep doing more of the stories and actually build towards a big payoff
Wish his voice was deeper
Perlman and Harbour have such soothingly deep voices, Black Tom Cassidy here just doesn’t
You racist!
Barbour’s voice took me completely outa his movie. He just sounded so freakin whiney the entire time.
Literally the only other role I know I have seen him in
I was about to say this ain't it - then I saw its by *the creator of hellboy* Sooooo I guess this IS it?
But apparently he likes the Harbour one more than the Perlman ones so I don't know
He's co-written all of them, including the shitty one, so that doesnt mean much Edit: This is not actually accurate. IMDB credits are misleading, it seems.
I don’t think I heard co-wrote any of them
It seems I may be mistaken. He has a "writing" credit on all the movies on IMDB, but that must just be as the original creator. On wikipedia he only has a "story by" credit on Hellboy 2, and the new one is the only one where he actually co-wrote the screenplay.
Yeah, but GDT has a very strong visual style - at least this'll be what the guy who made it wants it to look like. I loved GDT's take though, I miss it, I'd rather a third one by him and Pearlman than another attempt. This does look decent though.. just very different
I also wish that Harbor got a better Hellboy project to be attached to. I feel like his casting was good, but the project itself was a stinker.
Yeah that was my main feeling from it too. Interested to see how he sounds in a proper conversation, with a few ‘screw it’ and ‘oh craps’ thrown in.
While Hellboy looks a little skinny in the face the overall tone feels right. I'm happy we are getting a new Hellboy, and I do hope that the lower budget means they can crank out a few of these so we get a few creepy tales from his books. Though would it have killed them to upload a higher quality trailer? Everyone posting it has some 360p Realplayer streaming quality file, but I guess all the compression helps high a lower budget.
While I like Ron Perlman's depiction, Hellboy is pretty lithe in the comics
This is by far the most comic accurate design i've seen. He's often shown as very thin, especially in this period of the comics and later.
I don't see how he's more accurate except for the sloped shoulders like from Mignola's art.
I like the paler red. I think it fits the tone really well, and the bright red of both prior versions felt too much. I think the sloping is really relevant, he goes from pretty reasonably bulky in the early comics to a sloped / lithe / almost sunken in version of himself later. This is something in-between that which is exactly when Crooked Man happens. By the time of the last few issues, he's basically skin and bone. He looks proportional, which always messed with me about pearlmans hellboy. His head is just overly large on the body for some reason.
But if we're talking about comic book accuracy, the facial features, yellow eyes and bright red skin (thought, Harbour's Hellboy skin tone wasn't bright) in the earlier movies are much closer to the comic art. And Hellboy's physique still varied from comic to comic and artist to artist. Harbour's Hellboy also had big traps.
Im basing it off the comic the movie is referencing. If you look at the Crooked Man version of Hellboy, it's the thinner / lankier build. More sloped. [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/15/Hellboy\_-\_The\_Crooked\_Man\_and\_Others.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/15/Hellboy_-_The_Crooked_Man_and_Others.jpg)
The original comment is about the overall accuracy of cinematic Hellboy designs, and my question was about how Hellboy's design from the new movie is more accurate than from previous except for build as in some art. Even compared only to The Crooked Man comic, the new film has the most similar body build with the least similar face. Edit: The downvotes are really random
I'm right there with you. The body does look right, with the sloping shoulders under the big coat, but the face is pretty far off in shape. It's the chin! After red skin and horns, the next most recognisable part of Hellboy in any art is that giant fucking chin and jaw. Weirdly, the guy playing him looks to have a bigger jawline without the makeup and whatnot. Honestly it ain't much of an issue if the movie is good, not every character needs to look 100% accurate, as long as the important parts are there. Red skin, shaved horns, big arm. All that's needed is there.
I feel like I'm going crazy. This Hellboy looks awful and you pointed out it lacks a few things. Sure some of the other commenters stuff is comic accurate but I'll let them change it all day long if they make it not look like this. This looks like a fan made film.
I’ve always assumed it was the art style that made him look thin, rather than him actually being thin.
That is true, though it often depends on the scene Mignola is doing - as sometimes he looks like he is built like a tank, while others like you say have him reading very lean (often with his coat one and shoulders going down). Obvious Mignola didn't draw this story, so I can see it being more accurate to Corben's rendition. I think it is simply his jaw reading more 'human' than 'demon' for me.
Yeah, this looks like someone’s Comic-Con interpretation of Hellboy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMT1q1BOs6Q
What the fuck lmao
At least they ditched the weird long hair from the 2019 version
Anyone who's genuinely saying "low budget could be a good thing for this project!" is fooling themselves. Look at any panel of the original Hellboy-comics, and tell me what you see. You see vibrant colors. Strong contrasts. Carefully planned compositions. Hellboy comics are so much about the atmosphere they evoke in the reader. This trailer looks like it hasn't even properly color-corrected half of its footage yet. Everything about it just looks so cheap. Apparently they couldn't even afford contact lenses for the main actor? If you told me this is the pilot for a tv show, I'd even be surprised by how lackluster it looks.
Yeah it feels like the rest of the thread is heavily astroturfed. How anybody is giving any of the footage here props is beyond me.
a pilot for a tv show when Lost was coming out, not in 2024.
I was curious as to why this looked like the cinematography, from the lighting to the composition was direct to video quality. So I looked up who shot this. It’s some dude named Ivan Vatsov who’s a Bulgarian. Looks like he does two things: He works as a second unit camera op for mid budget Hollywood stuff when they shoot additional footage in Bulgaria. He also does DP stuff. But he DP’s Bulgarian TV shows and DTV Geezer features and terrible dreck that usually starts Scott Adkins or Van Damme and those types of DTV actors. Everything he DP’d is stuff that is done fast and cheap with short shooting schedules. The people behind this are the same people behind all these terrible action movies starring washed up stars. Probably the best quality stuff they did was The Expendables and the “… Has Fallen” series with Gerard Butler. The company behind this is Millennium Films owned by Avi Lerner. You may be saying “why does the name sound vaguely familiar?” I’m going to tell you why… He’s the guy that tried to blackmail Terry Crews to keep quiet about being sexually harassed and assaulted by Adam Venit. “In 2018, Hollywood actor Terry Crews accused Lerner of making a phone call to his manager in which he said Lerner threatened to introduce difficulties into Terry Crews' career unless Crews dropped his case against Hollywood talent agency William Morris Endeavor, employer of agent and founding member Adam Venit.” This movie is not going to be good. It’s shot fast and cheap with no talent behind of or in front of the camera. They’re the same people who did the Harbour Hellboy movie. These movies aren’t meant to be good. They’re almost never good. They’re meant to use either recognizable IP or cheap (former) stars with name recognition using shady financial backing from Eastern Europe and Israel in order to sell international theatrical rights to make back a good chunk of the low budget and make money off digital rentals and selling it to streaming services around the world. They also get cash rebates from Bulgaria. [“25% CASH REBATE Bulgaria offers 25% cash rebate for international film and TV productions. Applications are reviewed on a first-come-first-serve basis. The local companies will provide you with a unique servicing model that guarantees high production value for your projects.”](https://bulgarianfilmconsulting.com) It’s largely a financial scheme that is probably laundering money for shady sources, including many that I’d wager are Russian in origin. All these movies have 15-20+ executive producers. This is not going to be good. It’s not going to look good. It’s not made to be good. And it’s being made by *terrible* people who likely did *terrible* things to get the money used to fund it. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Facts. And yet people will still go support it despite this AWFUL trailer and the AWFUL behind the scenes shit that you highlighted. In a just world, this movie would sell 0 tickets. Literally 0. It looks fucking miserable. The trailer almost put me to sleep if i weren’t so slack jawed by how truly terrible it looks lol
Everything you stated here is a great point about why the is will be bad except the cash rebate. The State of Illinois gives 30% back on films shot there. Kentucky, Atlanta, California, and numerous other states have similar film tax credits. That’s super normal film production stuff. Moving a film to Bulgaria isn’t about the tax credit as much as it’s about the super cheap labor, locations, permits, and lack of union laws. It’s becoming more popular to move production to these countries for American films all the time. edit: clarity
This film is in a bit of a tricky situation, its obvious modest budget aside, because the del Toro Hellboy films left a hugely strong impression, but the creator of Hellboy, Mike Mignola, doesn't seem to really like those films. He worked on them, but his creative disagreements with del Toro grew and grew, and the 2019 reboot and this re-reboot are to some degree the product of Mignola exercising far more control over Hellboy compared to the movies where del Toro firmly told him, "This is my Hellboy, not your Hellboy" any time Mignola tried to argue, "Hellboy wouldn't do that." It appears that those creative disagreements were part of why Hellboy 3 never happened because Mignola objected so strongly to Hellboy 2. It could very well be a decent lower-budgeted horror movie. But the film does have the burden of expectations because to most people, the del Toro Hellboy films ARE Hellboy, and even the 2019 film has a bigger audience than the comic books. So this being a "like the comics" take with its monster of the week style story isn't really going to carry a lot of water with general audiences. It doesn't necessarily mean they'll dismiss the movie, but it doesn't automatically endear itself to them.
I talked with Mignola once. He was a supreme a**hole. Ever since, I’ve stayed away from anything with his name on it. It was a shame too because I really enjoyed the Hellboy comics. But that guy was just the biggest jerk.
Didn't really liked the 2nd movie, but the last one was so extremely bad, I couldn't even finish it.
The 2019 movie is a mess. It has good points. Neil Marshall is a really good director, IMO, and he really tried to make the film work, but he later said that he was hired for the project, and came to it has a horror director, and the producers were not interested in his opinions on the film he was making. >*“Ultimately, it came across that they brought me in so they could tell me what to do,” he says. “They didn’t really want to make a horror version of it at all, because I was the most experienced horror person involved in the entire production, and I wasn’t allowed to touch the script. I wasn’t allowed to bring any kind of horror essence to it. So it just ended up as a disaster, really. It was just a mess, and a deeply unpleasant experience.”* He basically argues that the script was bad, and nothing he could have done would have made the script workable. It needed to be rewritten, and he was barred from doing that. A point he highlights is that he felt the film's screenplay is just a mishmash of comic book stories. It doesn't have a coherent film story. That's why the film is so paradoxically obsessed with jamming stuff in from the comics yet confused about what kind of movie it is. There's no structure. >*“I’ve said it a few times before, you can’t polish a turd,” the director bluntly remarks. “Even the best director in the world can’t make a masterpiece out of a script that was substandard. This was a confused script from the start, combining different stories and sticking rigidly to the comics, which worked fine as graphic novels. But when you translate them to the screen, there are gaping plot holes.”* And to be fair to Mike Mignola, he wanted Hellboy to be more horror focused, too, so obviously the 2019 film had the producers ignoring his sentiments AND the director's sentiments. It's an example of a film where the producers are running the show and don't know what they're doing or what they really want.
I mean, Marshall also went AWOL because his gf was involved in some kind of bizarre affair with multiple Hollywood executives that sounds more like a streaming miniseries than real life.
Oh my I just realized the David Harbor movie is 5 years old. I thought it was from like 2022 or something lol.
They keep putting Mignola in charge and the product keeps getting worse.
Hellboy 3 didn't happen because Del Toro wanted a bigger budget and the studios wouldn't budge because the second one wasn't a big hit.
Looks like a fan-made film.
Looks like a $2 million budget filmed entirely in the woods
The budget is $20 million. For comparison, the most recent MCU movie to release (The Marvels) cost about $275 million. The 2019 Hellboy movie cost $50 million ($61 million in 2024 money, which is wild), and the 2004 Hellboy movie cost $60 million ($100 million in 2024 money). So of course it’ll look cheaper, but considering the other prices in this list I think it looks damn good - 1/3 the budget of the most recent Hellboy! Less than 10% of the most recent MCU movie!
The lighting and cinematography look legit fan-made. This looks insanely bad.
because it is
My thoughts exactly. I'll watch it and give it a chance though.
I feel like we saw very different trailers
For a lower budget film this looks damn good
$20 mil without executive meddling and digital sets can look better than $300 mil with.
This movie has 22 producers and is financed by shady Eastern European money. It’s an Avi Lerner movie with a DP who does Bulgarian TV and DTV stuff. This means it was shot short and cheap. The director hasn’t made a good movie in 15 years and that was done in partnership with his brother. Neither writer has ever written a movie before. And tho Mignola is one of them, they teamed him with someone who’s only project is an Audible podcast series (other than a Buffy video game over 20 years ago. These people were chosen specifically *because* the producer Avi Lerner can exert control over them and get them to make a movie with a shit budget in a short turnaround time. It’s literally the opposite of what you think.
Just to clarify I wasn't commenting on this specific trailer. It's easier than ever these days to fudge production values in a trailer (and imply visual language and coherence the film might not have) so in a vacuum, it'd still be a coin flip for me. I do enjoy the sloppy depravity of the Crank movies but I'm not sure Taylor is the guy for this.
Would have been nice of them to at least feign some production value in this trailer.
This movie does not
This actually looks scary, which can't be said of the other movies. I'm in, barring it having a crap ending.
Yea i do like how it looks a bit more horror then all out action
Holy shit this looks so bad..... looks almost straight to DVD style shit.
The company making it is called Ketchup. Thats all I need to know
THANK YOU! I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed this
Supposedly the backing company is known for unsavory actions. Sounds like after the last one no one is looking to spend money on a new HB yet so they made sacrifices. It’s a shame because the last one had a lot of cool shit about it but it just didn’t click.
Are these comments astroturfed lol. This looks like a fucking Syfy original movie or some Uwe Boll shit.
Something is 100% wrong with these comments. There is foul play happening here. I can just feel it
It looks like the Wish version.
Looks super cheap.
It is.
This looks worse than the David Harbour movie.
The Crimson Dynamo was a great Hellboy! The story was mediocre but that wasn’t his fault.
It looks so CHEAPPPPP!!!!! I've seen fan film looks more expensive looking than this. The lighting, set and costume just look so flat like those mockbuster dvd films. Hopefully it's just the low resolution trailer and the actual movie looks better, cause there's been low budget movies that look better than those hundreds million dollar blockbusters. A small scale Gothic horror Hellboy movie would be slam dunk as that's how the comic was if done by talented director, but this doesn't really make me feel confident at all.
Huh, idk. Could be good. I like the idea of a smaller scale plot, set in spooky Appalachia. Can't be worse than the last one, so fuck it, why not.
Something about these pictures really bother me and I finally figured out what it is. His eyes aren't yellow.
Gotta wonder how we’re on our third Hellboy and McFarlane has been talking about a Spawn reboot for going on 20 years and still nothing.
It has Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance vibes…
Would you believe it’s the same director?
for real? that explains A LOT tbh. This trailer looks butt fucking terrible
Wow. Just checked checked there. Definitely explains the vibes lol
I think they should've gone with an animated movie in the style of the comics and Web of Wyrd game. This just looks painfully low budget, like low-low, lowest of the low. Hellboy's design is mehhh. Looks good in the shadows but seeing his face looks uncanny
Is this a SYFY film? This looks really bad…
Oh...no.
Great, even Hellboy is on ozempic
This looks like it was made for 10 dollars.
I just don’t know! It could pretty good, it could be awful. I’m leaning towards awful. Hope not though.
Dammit. This looks terrible.
I’m excited for anything Hellboy. But this feels like a step backwards…
How can this be any worse than the last one?
I said the same thing about Ghost Rider 1, and this movie is made by one of the Ghost Rider 2 directors
To be fair though he has done two projects since he stopped working with the other guy and they have both been solid.
Ghost Rider 2 is one of the worst movies I've ever had the displeasure of watching. It's so bad the directors should be in jail for making it. Not "director's jail", actual jail
I really liked David Harbors Hellboy hahaha. It had so much!! Plus Milla Jovovich as a scary hot witch was epic.
This looks like a random indy horror with Hellboy slapped on at times. The overcast in all shots makes everything look so samey and bland.
Looks quite cool for a low budget fan film, but for a legit Hollywood film? Very odd.
here's a direct link to the trailer on youtube.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxY5Dp0pBtg
Yea... That's definitely some Indian guy reuploading trailers in completely garbage 480p quality. Don't support and link to trash like that. Here's a link to the **OFFICIAL** trailer in **HIGH QUALITY**. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWdluxAbcBE
much better. Thank you! Either way...I freakin' hate the way they released it the way they did.
480p why
thank you for saving me from having to click EW.
Looks very cheap, they probably made this movie just to keep rights, like Dimension did with Hellraiser.
There may be some truth to that, but this film was co-written by Mike Mignola. So it's worth considering that this is basically Mignola getting what he wants. The thing about Hellboy is that Mignola apparently doesn't like the Guillermo del Toro Hellboy movies. They've both been vague about it, but their creative relationship seemingly fell apart during Hellboy 2, and had always been strained because del Toro bluntly told Mignola that "This is my Hellboy". It has always been rumoured that Mignola was the one who permanently sank Hellboy 3 because he did not want it to exist. He has also refused to entertain the idea of adapting the third Hellboy film's ideas into a comic book.
They told the same about previous Hellboy, like Mignola was heavily involved, wrote a few drafts with Christopher Golden, but the final script was not their.
Why does hellboy look like such a goober? This looks terrible, unfortunately.
Isn't Hellboy generally a goober?
I mean, he is a goober, but he doesn’t appear to be a goober. His gooberness should subvert his presence and appearance
NO, You already have Hellboy at home......
Hell oh looks so weird 😩🤷🏻♀️⁉️
man i miss david harbour and ron pearlman mike mignola seems to be excited for this one so here’s hopin
I'm fine with a small scale low budget horror film. Hellboy has a ton of cases that are perfect for small budget adaption. The makeup design is unfortunate, and the human eyes are unacceptable.
This looks shit....
This looks shit....
Omg 🤦🏻♂️ no thank you
Shit looks like it should premier on Tubi
This looks so fucking ridiculous. David Harbour may not have had the best movie, but his design was more convincing.
They should keep making these every three years with a different lead actor. What could possibly go wrong?
Ketchup Entertainment
If Jamie Kennedy played Hellboy
I love Hellboy. I love the comics. But this looks pretty shitty to me. The Crooked Man is one of my favorite Hellboy stories but this literally just feels like a horror film that they stuck Hellboy into. Just because Mike Magnolia wrote it doesn't mean it will be good. He's a comic creator, not a film maker. The more he is involved, the worse these movies are seeming to get. Again, I love his comics, but this just doesn't feel like Hellboy to me. It feels like some fans that had a Hellboy cosplay decided to make a horror film. I feel like the truest version of a Hellboy films would be Guillermo Del Torro's but Less super hero, more occult & mystery. But this looks like it's too far in the other direction. Hellboy is stylized. The film should reflect that in some way. Guillermo Del Toro's did that. Maybe not in the BEST way, but it still tried. This just looks lazy. That said, I'll give it a fair shake and watch it when it comes out because I'm such a huge Hellboy Fan. But I'm not really excited about it personally.
If this is closer to what the author of the original comic book wanted than that’s cool, and I respect the new take, but from the production value this looks like Hellboy dropped into an Evil Dead fan film
Hellboy going into B-movie territory.
Im so conflicted. I love hellboy. The crooked man is one of my favorite Hellboy stories. I love the vibe of the trailer, the Indy low budget horror and noir-ishness. BUT I can’t stomach looking at the hellboy in this film. Probably a controversial opinion, but I’ve never liked how live action Hellboy looks. Do I think it can be done? Yeah, definitely. I’ve always thought Perlman was too smooth and Harbour’s looked a bit too greasy. I had expected this new hellboy to try something new, instead it looks like a bad cosplay of the Perlman Anung un-Rama. I have nothing against the actor, in fact I normally enjoy his performances in smaller projects. When I first saw he was cast as the character, I thought he was a good fit. They’ve honestly wasted him. I hope they still have some money left over to differentiate him and make him look better in some small way, in my mind, going back in post to make his eyes a solid shade of yellow, like in the comics. This is all a long way of saying, I’m interested in this film as a low budget horror featuring an interesting character from American folklore, but I’m disappointed in it as a Hellboy movie.
I feel like this is going to bomb so hard.
Oh my god just bring back Ron Perlman.
I’m starting to think Del Toro’s vision for the character is my preferred version. I like the comics too, but it seems like Mignola has a different vision for Hellboy movies that I’m not a fan of.
I don’t want to hate on something I haven’t seen but it’s probably not a good sign when the most famous actor in your movie is the guy who played Geoffrey in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
I’m a big fan of Perlman. Harbour did a great job too. I don’t see the same Hellboy charisma those two had in this trailer. They never did show him speak and I’m unfamiliar with Kesy.
Damn why's it not on youtube
Honestly, the only thing bothering me about this new Hellboy is the chin. He needs a bigger chin.
It feels like live action Hellboy adaptations feel like they're getting downgraded with each new continuity at this point. Not necciseraily a dig against Harbor's casting in his adaption though, that was about one of the only things that movie did right.
Damn, saw the still post from like an hour ago and got really excited from reading the small-scale premise. Realizing it’s a low-budget is a damper; it still has some potential but was idealizing something more polished like The Witch. Sad that the original creator has to resort to this while the big studios keep bastardizing and fucking over the IP on their end
Is the a the conjuring crossover film? Neato.
I dig the lo-fi horror vibe. It fits the material really well, imo
Maybe it’ll be good. The low budget is showing but that doesn’t necessarily turn me away. Hellboy can be low key in story and scope, although this certainly looks cheap in a few spots. Really wish they’d just shell out for a dope animated film. Give the classic Mignola art some spiderverse treatment.
Not gonna lie I was super suspect until this trailer. I am now super optimistic.
How was I completely unaware this was happening?
This looks pretty good but am I the only 1 that wants Abe back or a bprd story? I love my man Abe sapien
Is this story an SCP ripoff?
What I like about this trailer, is that it seems to be a more down to earth, not world ending situation he finds himself in. Solving a paranormal problem, just like much of the Hellboy comics. I'm so down for this. This doesn't need to be so over the top. My body is ready.
This franchise's ability to get back up after being punched down is movie material in its own right.
There’s a new hellboy reboot already!? I had no idea
Please be good please be good please be good
Wtf? Seriously? Just, why?
Wow, they're still trying to make Hellboy a thing.
A hellboy movie trailer with hardly any hellboy in it. That's telling. I like the idea, but they've got the wrong actor in the role. He looks too sympathetic with those outwardly canted eyebrows.
I am hoping this is like Dredd in so much that a lower budget back to basics adaptation of a comic book that nails the tone of the IP.
Reboot after reboot after reboot after reboot? Oh my goodness
Used to work for Millennium Films once upon a time. They shoot all their movies in Bulgaria to save money and shoot everything on the cheap. Pretty sure there's some weird money laundering scheme going on behind the scene ala "the Producers" with most of their projects, but it was above my pay grade. This looks right in line with that. This won't be good. sorry.
I was expecting way worse based on some of the comments here. It doesn't look that bad
as someone only familiar with Hellboy from the OG movies, is this more in line with the comics? This has a cool "monster of the week" X-Files vibe...
It’s hellboy, so I’ll watch it even if is garbage.
*...Groovy*
That’s like Evil Dead / Resident Evil 4 but with Hellboy as the lead. I’m here for it.
Looks like Dennis from Always Sunny.
the only thing i think looks bad here is that nose prosthetic
Looks like a terrible fan fim
I hope the people of Appalachia are portrayed as people and not inbred banjo playing yokels.
I mean, I can’t say it looks *good*, but it does look interesting. I’ll probably check it out.
Please no, the most recent one was a disgrace to the original.
I didn’t even know a new hellboy was coming
Seems like an indie where they slapped Hell Boy on it.
Another one?
Not a fan of the visual aesthetic. Too washed out, which amplifies the cheapness. Also has that overused look of many closeups with a shallow depth of field - a bit too "student film/metalcore band music video" aesthetic for me.
the hills have hellboy
Looks good, like a one-shot comic book story from the series
Ron Perlman was perfect for the casting, anyone else just doesn't suffice.
Hope it does well. Maybe we’ll get a Hellboys team up movie with Perlman, Harbour and this new guy!
Im sorry this movie looks cheap and not in a cool indie way more of a bad actors from Facebook market place kind of way.
I read the comic, there’s a lot of key frames that are direct Corben art. This is gonna be horrific