Sorry, You Can't Kickstart 'Hellboy 3'
Not all cult hits can continue by throwing money at them.
Master genre filmmaker Guillermo del Toro shares everyone’s wishes for a third installment of his beloved Hellboy series. But at San Diego Comic-Con last week, del Toro revealed that traditional Hollywood BS is the only thing capable of bringing Hellboy 3 to life.
“The hard fact is that the movie’s going to need about $120 million and there’s nobody knocking down our doors to give it to us,” del Toro told The Daily Beast at Comic-Con. “It’s a little beyond Kickstarter.”
It’s true. The first Hellboy cost a hefty $66 million. Its 2008 sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army ran a whopping $85 million. The most expensive movie ever funded on Kickstarter? The Veronica Mars movie, funded at $2 million. And Veronica isn’t fighting demons from hell with star Kristen Bell underneath extensive make-up, wardrobe, and CGI.
While the global box office for both films was good, they’re still expensive productions with a relatively low profile. In competing against the giants of Marvel and other franchises, Hellboy is stuck as an underdog.
Buzz for the long-awaited third installment started randomly earlier this year when its star, Ron Perlman, sounded off on social media. He later had to apologize for stirring people up.
But del Toro himself is a little guilty. At last year’s Comic-Con in Hall H, he asked simply, “Hellboy 3?” to great hoopla by the 6,000 strong in attendance, while Legendary Pictures CEO Thomas Tull was present in the room.
Hellboy 3 isn’t impossible. It is just really difficult to greenlight. Del Toro has said Legendary will finance Hellboy 3 if Pacific Rim 2 turns out to be the hit they want it to be. This would be great news, except Pacific Rim performed like crap domestically and was only saved because China seemed really into it. Safe to say, Hellboy 3 will be a movie that exists only in your head for the foreseeable future.
