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Posted in: Exclusive, Interview, Lionsgate, Movies | Tagged: david harbour, exclusive, hellboy, interview, milla jovovich, neil marshall
Hellboy Director Neil Marshall on What Went Wrong in the 2019 Reboot
Director Neil Marshall (Duchess) spoke to Bleeding Cool on what he thinks went wrong with the 2019 Lionsgate reboot of Hellboy.
Article Summary
- Director Neil Marshall discusses what went wrong with the 2019 Hellboy reboot in an interview with Bleeding Cool.
- Marshall believes the film's failure was due to a script too faithful to the comics, hindering its cinematic adaptation.
- The 2019 Hellboy reboot faced the challenge of following Guillermo del Toro's successful adaptations.
- Originally meant as a sequel, Hellboy 2019 became a reboot, with the shift impacting its overall success.
Neil Marshall has been quite a success story in Hollywood since his hit horror films Dog Soldiers in 2002 and The Descent in 2005. His notoriety picked up when he directed some of the biggest franchises on TV, including Starz! Black Sails, HBO's Game of Thrones, NBC's Hannibal, and Netflix's Lost in Space. One strange misfire was the 2019 reboot of Hellboy from Lionsgate, which starred David Harbour, Milla Jovovich, and Ian McShane. It would be naïve to think it didn't have the tall task of following up the Guillermo del Toro film adaptations that starred Ron Perlman. Both are based on the Mike Mignola Dark Horse Comic, but the 2019 reboot was largely panned. While promoting his latest action film for Vertigo Releasing in Duchess, Marshall spoke to Bleeding Cool about why he felt the film fizzled with audiences and critics alike.
Hellboy (2019) Director Neil Marshall on Why Reboot Failed
BC: Did you feel the 2019 Hellboy had a fair shot? Was there something that could have been done differently on the production side or marketing for better success?
NM: Ultimately, it all boils down to the script. If they had a better script to write a better film, the script's problem was it almost sticking too faithfully to some of the comics, which worked brilliantly as comics, but don't translate if you're literally just adapting it. It wasn't merely adapting, it was literally copying and pasting a comic to the screen, and the story beats. It raises a lot of questions you wouldn't do if it was just a script. That was a mistake, not having a good enough script, because at the end of the day as a director, you can only do so much. There are moments that captured the kind of film I wanted to make, but they're few and far between.
The 2019 film was penned by Andrew Cosby, originally set to be a sequel to 2008's The Golden Army. After del Toro and Perlman left, Marshall and Harbour were brought in, and the film became a full reboot. It finds Hellboy (Harbour) fighting the evil Blood Queen, Vivienne Numue (Jovovich), who was brought back to life. The film also starred Sasha Lane, Daniel Dae Kim, and Thomas Haden Church. A fourth film on the way in the upcoming Hellboy: The Crooked Man stars Jack Kesy in the title role, set in the 1950s and set for release in 2024 from Ketchup Entertainment. Duchess, which stars Charlotte Kirk, Philip Winchester, Colm Meaney, Hoji Fortuna, Colin Egglesfield, Stephanie Beacham, and Sean Pertwee, is available on digital on August 12th.
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