Guillermo Del Toro Confirms: ‘Hellboy 3’ is 100% Not Happening

We live in an era when it seems like anything can happen, that any movie imaginable can get a sequel or a spin-off of a follow-up TV series if the fans want it badly enough. A 35-year-0ld movie that bombed in its original theatrical release is getting a hotly anticipated new installment later this year called Blade Runner 2049. Even the arcade game Rampage is getting the blockbuster movie treatment at least two decades after it stopped being culturally significant.

Yup, fans can get Hollywood to make just about anything if they yell loudly about it. But another Hellboy movie? Apparently that was too much to ask for.

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Guillermo Del Toro directed the first two Hellboy films in 2004 and 2008. Adapted from the Dark Horse comic books and starring Ron Perlman as a monster who saves humanity from other monsters, the films weren’t huge hits but do they have respectable reputations and a passionate fanbase. Guillermo Del Toro has been saying the third film in the trilogy was on his “to do” list for years, and just last month the filmmaker tweeted that he had talked to Ron Perlman was ready to meet with Mike Mignola about finally turning Hellboy 3 into a reality.

Then, earlier today, this happened…

Guillermo Del Toro very pointedly avoids pointing fingers. “All parties” means everyone involved, so the folks responsible for putting their foot down and saying “no” could have been the actors, the studio, the creator or even Del Toro himself if he didn’t like the conditions under which the movie would have to be made.

But for a filmmaker who often peddles in promises, who sometimes seems to have more projects in development than in his filmography, and who is constantly developing new ideas and teasing his fans with possibilities… for THAT filmmaker to say “100% the sequel will not happen,” that’s a thing we’ve got to take seriously.

Barring a minor miracle it seems as though time and circumstance and business did something that even eldritch gods and a golden army couldn’t do: they have defeated Hellboy.

Aw crap.

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Top Photo: Universal Pictures

William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.

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