On Wednesday, veteran actor Ron Perlman returned on reddit for his third AMA. And when questions were inevitably directed towards the Hellboy reboot, Ron Perlman expressed what many users perceived as a sort of despondent frustration. His words exactly: “I’ve made my peace with it. I refuse to answer any questions about it.”
Perlman raged an admirably lengthy campaign alongside fans to get Hellboy 3 distribution, a campaign that met with a definitive end back in January when Guillermo Del Toro declared on Twitter that it will never happen. Confirmation was cemented when Lionsgate announced a darker adaption of the pulp comic was in the works, with Stranger Things star David Harbour playing the titular demon.
As it turns out, Perelman's refusal to address the reboot came right off the heels of an official release of Harbour in full garb and makeup. The new Hellboy conveyed a much more menacing and imposing iteration of the paranormal investigator compared to Perlman’s charmingly brutish approach.
I am by no means deaf to Ron Perlman’s dejection, if that was in fact what it was. As a fan of both the comics and the Del Toro romps, I can’t imagine anyone else playing Red but Perlman. Honestly, I thought the two films had a nice, cozy place right before the rise of franchise drivel – I’m not even interested in Hellboy 3 or any other Hellboy adaptation on the big screen for that matter.
But I’ve started to think reboot antipathy is feckless – that’s the culture now. Maybe we’re all looking at this the wrong way. Sure, by its very nature, the turnout rate for reboots can’t feel anymore cynical and condescending, but it keeps happening for a reason. Moviegoers are paying to see these things. There’s this unassailable addiction we all share in watching our nostalgia get dismantled then put back together again, over and over and over. Reboots feed the perpetual “How will they do it this time?” This isn’t necessarily a declaration of our culture's obsession with rehashed junk and sentimentality – sometimes, there is absolutely room for a work to be interpreted better.
Take It for example. The original 1990 television mini-series was well before my time, but by all accounts, it was a smash hit with audiences, even many critics at the time. Sure the 2017 remake makes a point to capitalize on the current jumpscare/ Stranger Things wave, but it also adapted Stephen King’s iconic work in ways that were just not available to the sensibilities of the industry thirty years ago.
I have no reason to believe that filmmakers behind the upcoming Hellboy reboot don’t have in mind an angle worth exploring with the character, and I owe to myself and them, to be open to the possibility they very well might, that their interpretation of Mike Mignola's opus might even be better than the one that holds a special place in my memories.
Are you excited or apathetic about the upcoming Hellboy reboot? Let us know in the comment section below.
