Mike Mignola has been involved in the new Hellboy reboot from the very beginning. The comic book legend penned the original script for the R-rated movie Hellboy: The Crooked Man with Christopher Golden and has been part of the process of bringing it to the screen throughout.
Speaking to 12DOVE at San Diego Comic-Con, Mignola opened up about how much he enjoyed being involved from the very beginning. "So often I would come in late on projects where somebody else had already put the pieces together in a way that didn't quite fit," he told us. "And this time, I got a chance to say, 'We're going to do The Crooked Man, we're going to stick to that story.' We need to add a little bit of backstory. So we borrowed it from one other story so we didn't have to make up new stuff."
The new movie, Hellboy: The Crooked Man, is set in the ‘50s and sees the Cambion trapped in rural Appalachia. He finds himself sucked into a local conspiracy when the community he’s in starts getting haunted by witches, all controlled by one sinister figure.
"We basically just fit two different Hellboy stories together. Just a little bit of one and then try to stick as much as possible to The Crooked Man, because not only is it my favorite story, it has most of my favorite Hellboy moments," Mignola added. "So the idea of actually trying to get that stuff on screen was really exciting."
Mignola has been involved with many of the Hellboy adaptations in various forms. "Every one of them has been a very different experience," he added. "But as somebody who's had mixed feelings about the earlier films, the one lesson I learned is if I can get in at the very beginning, and at some point you know you're gonna lose – I mean you never have control but you feel like you have control at the beginning and then you hope that somebody doesn't take apart the thing you built. That happens."
The new movie is directed by Crank helmer Brian Taylor, and Mignola said working with him on the film allowed them to make it one of the most comic-book-accurate takes yet. "When we first talked, Brian said, 'Let's just go back to the way the real storey was written,'" the writer continued. "So you think you might be in good company when that happens."
Mignola was also blown away that the new version also contains some moments drawn straight from Richard Corben’s artwork. "Yeah, more so than any other movie and I know in other movies, there have been moments where I’ve gone, 'Oh, cool, that's the comic.' But this thing was so much the comic.
"This is the only movie where I wasn't on set at all but the only movie where I've actually seen dailies every day so it was about one day behind where they were shooting. Almost every day was amazement of, 'Oh my god that looks like that, this looks like this. Oh my god, they used the same angle for that shot.' It really was that amazing thing of seeing your work brought to life."
Hellboy: The Crooked Man is due to be released in 2024. For more upcoming movies, check out our breakdown of 2024 release dates and new superhero movies on the way.
