Hellboyreboot director Neil Marshall (The Descent) has been talking about the upcoming movie’s R-rating allowing him to “take off the cuffs” while adapting thepopular comic book series. The original comic was written and illustrated by Mike Mignola and later turned into two successful big screen adaptations by Guillermo del Toro, starring Ron Perlman. Originally del Toro announced that he was working on a third movie, but it ultimately did not come into fruition and the R-rated reboot was announced earlier this year.
Neil Marshall was recently on Mick Garris’s Post Mortem podcast where he spoke of the freedom that an R-rating allows him onHellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen. Marshall explains.
“We’ve been granted permission to do it R-rated, which for me is just like taking the cuffs off. It’s like okay, so now we can just make the movie we want to make.”
Marshall went on to explain that they won’t just make an R-rated movie for the rating’s sake. He says this.
“It’s not like I’m going to force it to be R-rated, but if it happens to come out that way, just because of my own sensibilities, then fine. And nobody’s going to stop us. So that’s the main difference.”
Marshall also brought up the success of movies likeLoganandDeadpoolleading the way for R-rated comic book movies while commenting on the gore of the originalHellboycomic book. Marshall explains.
“I’m sure, obviously, the success of things likeDeadpoolandLoganhave not hurt the case. But, also, when you go back to the original material, it is kind of bloody, so I’m going to embrace that.”
TheHellboyreboot is set to starDavid Harbour, Chief Hopper fromStranger ThingsasHellboythis time around and Neil Marshall has also noted that the production is going to go back and use as many practical effects as possible. Read what Marshall had to say about practical effects below.
“I love to do stuff in camera whenever I possibly can, and use CG as the amazing tool that it is, to enhance or expand upon the world, but not use it to replace reality, when you can do it for real.”
The return of the use of practical effects has been a recent and welcome trend for Hollywood, which has been oversaturated with intense use of CGI technology. Directors like J.J. Abrams and Colin Trevorrow have been preaching the use of tangible effects in their last few big budget studio movies.
The R-rating will certainly help to separate the reboot fromGuillermo del Toro’s original Hellboy movies, which were each rated PG-13. It is unclear why del Toro announced earlier this year thatHellboy IIIwould not happen since he and starRon Perlmanseemed excited to get it off of the ground. The director even conducted a poll through social media to see if the fan interest was there and it of course was, so it looks as if the blame would fall on the studio. In an interview afterwards, del Toro mentioned that the studio would not finance the third installment of his vision forHellboy.
While fans are disheartened that Ron Perlman and de Toro will not be returning to finish, an R-rated reboot is still exciting.Mike Mignola’s source materialis certainly bloody and pretty messed up, so it’ll be interesting to see how Neil Marshall takes his vision ofHellboyand how closely it follows the original comic book series.Hellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen, which is a working title, does not have an official release date yet.
