Ron Perlman has said he and Guillermo del Toro “owe” a third Hellboy film to fans.
Perlman starred in the 2004 del Toro directed Hellboy and its 2008 sequel Hellboy 2: The Golden Army but after years of speculation, del Toro confirmed in 2017 that Hellboy 3 100 per cent “will not happen. And that is to be the final thing about it.”
“Hellboy may move into a different direction. heartbroken- but, not up to me. I, for one, wish everyone involved the best of luck,” he added. A rebooted version of Hellboy starring Stranger Things’ David Harbour was released in 2019.
However in a new interview, Perlman has said he wants to revisit the character alongside del Toro.
“Am I eager to do Hellboy 3? No, I’m 71 fucking years old,” he told The Independent before adding “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.”
In a 2015 AMA on Reddit, del Toro wrote that the idea for Hellboy 3 “was to have Hellboy finally come to terms with the fact that his inevitable destiny is to become the beast of the Apocalypse, and having him and Liz (Selma Blair) face that part of his nature in order to be able to ironically vanquish the foe that he has to face in the 3rd film.
“He has to become the best of the Apocalypse to be able to defend humanity, but at the same time he becomes a much darker being. It’s a very interesting ending to the series, but I don’t think it will happen,” he added.
Perlman stars in del Toro’s recently released Nightmare Alley remake.
In a five-star review, NME wrote: “Riding the waves of his Oscar win for 2017’s The Shape Of Water, del Toro takes the biggest budget he can and crams all of his passions into one movie – ending up with something that feels more like three.”
“Turning a weird, little fairground sideshow into a main stage, grand gala with an all-star cast, del Toro’s version is overwrought, overwritten and overlong. It’s also a masterpiece, and his best film for years.”
