Hellboy: all the updates on the R-rated reboot

Lionsgate films has released a pair of new trailers for its upcoming reboot of Mike Mignola’s classic comic, Hellboy. The new trailers — a red and green band spot — give us a good look at the film’s plot, and presents a much better feeling than the first trailer did.

The film is a reboot of the film franchise, with The Descent and Game of Thrones director Neil Marshall helming the project, featuring Stranger Things’ David Harbour as the movie’s titular demon. The new trailers outline what we can expect for the plot of the film, and covers some of the familiar beats of Hellboy’s origin story. During World War II, Hellboy was summoned from Hell by Nazis looking for an edge in the later days of the war. He was instead adopted by the US, and raised under the auspices of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, an agency designed to help fend off paranormal threats.

Hellboy is back. Lionsgate released a first look at the upcoming adaptation of Mike Mignola’s classic noir-horror comic, showcasing Stranger Things star David Harbour as the titular demon.

The trailer shows off the titular character working alongside members of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) as they fight against monsters that threaten the world. In Mignola’s story, Hellboy also struggles against his demonic nature, and against the reactions of humans who see him as a monster. Also in the trailer: Ian McShane as Hellboy’s adoptive father, Professor Bruttenholm; Lost’s Daniel Dae Kim as BPRD operative Ben Daimio; and Sasha Lane as Alice Monaghan. Much of the action appears to be centered in England, which tracks, given that the film’s antagonist is Nimue the Blood Queen (played by Resident Evil star Milla Jovovich), a British witch who appeared in the comic arc Darkness Calls.

Lionsgate has released the first image of Stranger Things star David Harbour as Hellboy’s titular demonic lead. An earlier report that the company had set a 2019 release date for the film was false, Lionsgate said.

Unlike the prior film adaptations by Guillermo del Toro, the reboot will be rated R. In August, the character’s creator, Mike Mignola, told The Verge that he was excited to see Game of Thrones director Neil Marshall come on board to helm the project, saying that they “decided to go for an R rating, so he doesn’t have his hands tied, and so he can go as dark and as tough as he wants to go.”

Actor Ed Skrein (Deadpool) has announced he’ll no longer be playing Major Ben Daimio in the upcoming Hellboy reboot, citing the importance of representation in film casting. Skrein joined the project just last week, but the decision to cast him as Daimio, a Japanese-American character in the comic books, was quickly met with backlash and accusations of whitewashing.

“It is clear that representing this character in a culturally accurate way holds significance for people, and that to neglect this responsibility would continue a worrying tendency to obscure ethnic minority stories and voices in the arts,” Skrein wrote in a note on Twitter. “I feel it is important to honor and respect that.”

In 1993, writer-artist Mike Mignola introduced comic book readers to Hellboy, a demon discovered and raised by American soldiers after World War II that ended up fighting against forces attempting to take over the Earth. It was an almost immediate hit, and Mignola went on to expand the world with an array of new characters and a related comic series.

One big part of that universe has been a series called B.P.R.D., which follows the titular government agency dedicated to protecting the country against paranormal threats. Mignola brought Hellboy’s story to a close with Hellboy in Hell a couple of years ago, and this month he launched a new arc called The Devil You Know that will bring B.P.R.D. to an end as well.

Earlier this week, writer / artist Mike Mignola announced on Facebook that a new deal was in the works to bring his comic Hellboy back to the big screen. This is welcome news for fans of the character, but it does suggest we’ll never get to see director Guillermo del Toro complete his own cinematic Hellboy trilogy, even after years of trying to get a third installment to the series off the ground.

Mignola’s Hellboy is a long-running series published by Dark Horse Comics, following a demon named Hellboy and his allies as they fight various supernatural creatures and conspiracies. The series blends Lovecraftian-style cosmic horror with the stylings of superhero adventures.