When the comic book adaptation started becoming a global phenomenon, Guillermo del Toro ventured into the genre with his 2004 movie Hellboy. Featuring Ron Perlman in the titular role, the director adapted the movie from Mike Mignola’s supernatural horror comic. Soon Hellboy created a fanbase, and del Toro proceeded with Hellboy II: The Golden Army.
Releasing the sequel in 2008, Guillermo del Toro received decent reviews among critics and viewers and became a moderate box office success. Since then, fans have been hearing about the rumors of Hellboy 3 in the making, but unfortunately, the movie never made its way to the theatres for a bizarre reason.
Guillermo del Toro’s Plans for Ron Perlman’s Hellboy 3
Adapting Mike Mignola’s supernatural horror comic by the same name, Guillermo del Toro came up with his 2004 movie Hellboy featuring Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, and Doug Jones. Narrating the story of the mighty red demon who investigates paranormal incidents, del Toro earned promising reviews from fans.
Therefore, witnessing Hellboy’s success at the box office, Guillermo del Toro found the courage to proceed with a sequel story, Hellboy II: The Golden Army in 2008. Showing Ron Perlman’s character stopping the Golden Army from awakening and threatening the world, the director gave an open ending to the story with Hellboy and Liz expecting twins.
Willing to conclude the franchise with his third sequel, Guillermo del Toro left Hellboy II: The Golden Army with an open ending. Unfortunately, his plans went in vain, as it’s been more than a decade since fans have been waiting for the third installment. Despite having solid plans for the conclusion, del Toro failed to find studios to finance the movie.
Reason Why Hellboy 3 Never Came to Fruition
According to Guillermo del Toro, he has been trying his best to start Hellboy 3 with Ron Perlman and the OG cast. But unfortunately, studios are finding it hard to finance the film in today’s fragile market. As per his Reddit AMA, the director revealed the bizarre reason why the studios are holding back from financing Hellboy 3.
“We have gone through basically every studio and asked for financing, and they are not interested. I think that the first movie made its budget back, and a little bit of profit, but then it was very very big on video and DVD. The story repeated itself with the second already, it made its money back at the box office, but a small margin of profit in the release of the theatrical print, but was very very big on DVD and video. Sadly now from a business point of view all the studios know is that you don’t have that safety net of the DVD and video, so they view the project as dangerous.”
Considering the fact that Studios can no longer rely on the sale of DVDs to earn their shares, they are holding back from financing Hellboy 3. It is indeed a ridiculous reason for not financing the movie since most films these days are released on OTT platforms. In that case, Studios will no longer be able to invest in any project.
Sharing the unfortunate reason with fans, Guillermo del Toro broke the hearts of millions. Fans now find it hard to believe that at this pace the director will ever be able to make Hellboy 3. But neither the filmmaker nor Ron Perlman has given up hope. The duo is dead set on making the third installment.
