Hellboy (franchise)

Lore & Background

The character of Hellboy was originally created by Mike Mignola as a comic book character in 1993, and has featured in numerous comic books, miniseries, one-shots, backup features, crossovers, and guest appearances. The first film adaptation was made in 2004, directed and co-written by Guillermo del Toro, starring Ron Perlman as Hellboy. A sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, was released in 2008, also directed by del Toro, with Perlman returning. In 2019, a reboot titled Hellboy was released, directed by Neil Marshall and starring David Harbour, to negative reviews. A second reboot, Hellboy: The Crooked Man, was released direct-to-VOD in 2024, directed by Brian Taylor and starring Jack Kesy.

Reader's Guide

The Hellboy franchise began with Mike Mignola's comic book character in 1993 and expanded into film adaptations starting in 2004. The original two films directed by Guillermo del Toro are considered the core of the live-action series, with Ron Perlman as the titular character. A 2019 reboot starring David Harbour was critically panned and deemed a box office bomb, grossing $55.1 million against a $50 million budget. A second reboot, Hellboy: The Crooked Man, was released in 2024. The franchise also includes two animated films, Sword of Storms and Blood and Iron, which aired on Cartoon Network, as well as a live-action television pilot, The B.P.R.D. Declassified. Several projects, including a third del Toro film and a spin-off titled Hellboy: Silverlance, were cancelled. The franchise's total box office gross is $325.3 million against a combined budget of $212.5–$221 million.

Did You Know?

• Hellboy II: The Golden Army was shot in Budapest and released in 2008.
• The 2019 reboot, titled Hellboy, grossed $55.1 million against a $50 million production budget.
• Hellboy: The Crooked Man was released direct-to-VOD in the United States on October 8, 2024.

The Del Toro Vision (2004–2008)

Guillermo del Toro both directed and co-wrote the 2004 Hellboy, assembling a cast that became iconic: Ron Perlman as the title character—a choice both del Toro and creator Mike Mignola considered ideal—alongside Selma Blair as Liz Sherman, John Hurt as Professor Bruttenholm, and Doug Jones as Abe Sapien, whose voice in the first film was supplied by an uncredited David Hyde Pierce. The story presents Hellboy as a creature confined to the B.P.R.D. compound, surrounded by a dozen cats, largely unknown to the public and dismissed as an urban legend. The 2008 sequel, shot in Budapest, marked a deliberate tonal shift toward European folklore rather than straight action. Jones returned as Abe Sapien—this time undubbed—and also portrayed the Angel of Death and the Chamberlain. Seth MacFarlane voiced the newly added Johann Kraus, while the first film's Agent Myers was winked away with a joke about Hellboy transferring him to Antarctica out of jealousy. The sequel also saw Hellboy publicly reveal himself and Liz's pregnancy with his twins. Production was turbulent: Revolution Studios collapsed before filming, and Universal Studios stepped in to save the project.

The Reboot Attempts (2019 & 2024)

In May 2017, Mike Mignola publicly backed Millennium Media's plan for an R-rated reboot, originally titled Hellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen. David Harbour was cast in the lead, Neil Marshall was set to direct, and the screenplay drew from multiple comic arcs including Darkness Calls, The Wild Hunt, The Storm and the Fury, and Hellboy in Mexico. The film, eventually retitled simply Hellboy, hit theaters on April 12, 2019, to largely negative critical reception. It collected $55.1 million against a $50 million production budget, prompting several outlets to label it a box office bomb. In 2022, Marshall publicly decried the experience as the worst professional ordeal of his career, explaining that producers stripped him of creative control and the script proved unsalvageable; he concluded, "there's nothing of me in that movie." Undeterred, Millennium Media announced a second reboot in February 2023: Hellboy: The Crooked Man, directed by Brian Taylor from a script by Mignola and Christopher Golden, adapted from the 2008 comic of the same name. Jack Kesy took the title role, and the film was released direct-to-VOD in the United States on October 8, 2024, positioned as the first entry in a potential new series.

The Unfinished Trilogy and Shelved Projects

During the promotional run for The Golden Army, del Toro expressed enthusiasm for a third installment, saying he knew exactly where the story would go. Yet over the following years he repeatedly acknowledged the project was unlikely, citing the difficulty of securing funding for the expanded scope he envisioned. When rights holders chose a reboot path in 2017 rather than continuing with del Toro, the trilogy was effectively killed. Ron Perlman kept voicing his wish to complete it well into the 2020s, but by 2024 he admitted he had "let go of the fight." A separate ambition, Hellboy: Silverlance, fared no better. In 2010, screenwriter Peter Briggs was asked by Universal to develop a spin-off centered on Prince Nuada, with Abe Sapien as the lead and Hellboy in a supporting role. The story would have traced Nuada's adventures from the Spanish Inquisition to Nazi Germany, culminating at a new B.P.R.D. headquarters in Colorado. Universal shelved it because del Toro's third film was still theoretically alive. In 2015, after Hellboy III was officially cancelled, Briggs was invited back for a rework, but the project never materialized, and the planned "From the Files of the B.P.R.D." spin-off series was never launched.

Franchise Scope and Financial Picture

Since Mike Mignola introduced Hellboy in Dark Horse Comics in 1993, the character has appeared across a wide array of media: numerous comic books, miniseries, one-shots, backup features, crossovers, and guest appearances. The live-action franchise itself spans four theatrical films, a television pilot, two animated feature films along with short films, plus a catalog of video games and novels. The first screen adaptation arrived in 2004, and the franchise's collective box office total stands at $325.3 million, generated against a combined production budget estimated between $212.5 and $221 million. That figure encompasses the two del Toro films, the 2019 Harbour reboot, and the 2024 Crooked Man release. The financial picture is complicated by the fact that the 2019 entry was widely deemed a bomb relative to its $50 million cost, while the 2024 film bypassed theatrical distribution entirely in the United States, going straight to video-on-demand. The franchise's longevity rests on Mignola's original comic work, which continues to serve as the source material for every subsequent adaptation, from live-action to animation to interactive media.