Ron Perlman was the first actor to bring Hellboy to life on the big screen, debuting as the Dark Horse Comics character under Guillermo del Toro’s direction in 2004, followed by the two re-teaming for 2008’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Despite this cinematic saga being envisioned as a trilogy, Hellboy 3 never moved forward, though that hasn’t stopped fans from championing for it over the years. Ultimately Perlman is still game to do a third Hellboy movie, despite being, as he put it, “71 fucking years old.”
When the first Hellboy movie came out, Ron Perlman was just days shy of turning 54, and as of this writing, he’s three months away from turning 72. So obviously playing such a physically-intensive role like Hellboy would be more challenging now, and Perlman acknowledged to The Independent that he’s not “eager” to do Hellboy 3 because of his advanced age. That being said, he feels it’s necessary to make one final movie to wrap up this story, saying:
We owe this to the fans and we should give it to them because it would be an epic conclusion. So Guillermo, if you’re reading, I’m not done pounding you to get this fucking thing done.
After the conflict with Prince Nuada Silverlance wrapped up, Hellboy II: The Golden Army concluded with the title character, Liz Sherman, Abe Sapien and Johann Krauss resigning from the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, and Hellboy also learned from Liz that she was pregnant with twins. Alas, in addition to never getting to see these versions of the characters as parents, we never got closure over how it was Hellboy’s destiny as the Beast of the Apocalypse to unleash the Ogdru Jahad and bring about Ragnarok, no matter how hard he pushed against it. Ron Perlman has previously said he hopes the trilogy is finished someday, and even though it would put his body through… well, hell, he’s willing to tackle the threequel with Guillermo del Toro so that fans of the original Hellboy film series finally a proper ending.
Although Hellboy II: The Golden Army was met with decent critical reception, it only made a little over $168 million worldwide off a budget somewhere between $82-85 million, and that was a big factor in Hellboy 3 not being greenlit. A Hellboy reboot starring Stranger Things’ David Harbour was released in 2019, but it was a critical and commercial failure, so don’t expect to see that receive a sequel. Unless there’s a different live-action Hellboy project secretly in the works (a Netflix series might be cool), maybe the time has come to revisit making Hellboy 3 a reality.
Naturally we’ll let you know if there’s any major movement on Hellboy 3, but fans of both Ron Perlman and Guillermo del Toro can take comfort knowing these two continue to work together on other projects. Perlman stars as Bruno in del Toro’s latest movie, Nightmare Alley, and he’s also one of the voices in the filmmaker’s stop-motion animated take on Pinocchio for Netflix, which dropped its first trailer earlier this week. Perlman can also be seen in Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up, and he recently didn’t hold back telling off critics who’ve given the movie negative reviews.
Those of you curious about what cinematic entertainment awaits later this year should look through our guide detailing 2022 movie releases.