The story of the Hellboy movie franchise is an unusual one, to say the least. A comic book superhero, created by writer-artist Mike Mignola, the character was adapted for film by writer-director Guillermo del Toro as 2004’s Hellboy, with Ron Perlman in the title role. The movie was well-received, and a sequel followed in 2008 with Hellboy II: The Golden Army. It, too, was well-received but, bucking the trend of endless franchise instalments, everything fell quiet. The idea of Hellboy 3 seemed to grow more and more unlikely. Now, however, Jeffrey Tambor – who plays a prominent supporting role in the Hellboy franchise – has just hinted that a third chapter may finally on the way after all.
For the uninitiated, Hellboy is a demon summoned from Hell to Earth as an infant in 1944 by Nazi occultists (led by Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin) seeking a paranormal advantage in the final days of World War II. Discovered by the Allied Forces, he is essentially adopted and raised as a regular boy by Professor Bruttenholm, as an international organization named the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defence (BPRD) is founded. He is not a regular boy, however. He has superhuman strength, a remarkable healing power, and high levels of endurance – and he goes to work for the BPRD.
2004’s Hellboy deals with the origin story and resurrects Rasputin, who proceeds to orchestrate the death of Professor Bruttenholm (John Hurt) and attempt to coerce Hellboy into unleashing hellish creatures on an unsuspecting world. In 2008’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army, the BPRD must battle against Prince Nuada and his Golden Army – whose rise is the consequence of the undoing of an ancient truce between man and a group of magical creatures from the forest. The special features on the DVD release of the second instalment included an animated comic that seemed to foreshadow the next chapter of the story, as Rasputin once again reappears – but that’s as close to Hellboy 3 as we have come.
