In the intervening years, the principal players in the franchise – del Toro and Perlman – have both repeatedly indicated that they would like to return to the Hellboy movies one last time. Indeed, in a 2013 interview, Perlman stated:
“For me to do Hellboy 3, it could kill me – in terms of [being] physically demanding, for a guy my age – but it’s worth it, because anyone who sits and listens to Guillermo’s version of how this thing ends is completely seduced. It’s so theatrical and compelling and if you liked the first two movies in any way, shape or form, this is the ultimate one-two punch.”
In reality, it seems not everybody was being completely seduced, however, according to del Toro’s July 2014 Reddit AMA:
“I don’t think it will happen… We have gone through basically every studio and asked for financing, and they are not interested.”
That sounds pretty definitive – no money, no movie. But, promoting his new Amazon TV show, Transparent, Jeffrey Tambor suggested a slightly different take on the back-channel Hellboy 3 rumblings:
“There is actually talk of a Hellboy 3, but they better hurry up or I’m going to be in a walker.”
He’s not wrong – time is a-wasting. So, what are the chances of Hellboy 3 coming to a theatre near you at some point in the future? I would suggest that if del Toro’s vision is as epic in scale as one would expect, then his own summary of financing issues is probably an accurate assessment. Surprising though it is – what with it being a comic book movie franchise and all – it would seem that these days, a superhero needs to break the magic $400 million barrier for studios to feel confident enough to proceed. Neither Hellboy nor Hellboy II achieved anything close to that status in theatrical box office terms, so if Hellboy 3 is what you want, you’ll probably need to make some noise.
