HELLBOY Creator Mike Mignola Discusses HELLBOY: THE CROOKED MAN Movie and the Casting of Jack Kesy
After the last disappointing Hellboy movie was released, I wasn’t sure if we’d ever see an attempt to make another one again. But, it’s happening with Hellboy: The Crooked Man. The movie will be yet another attempt to breathe life into the franchise.
The script for the film is being written by creator Mike Mignola and Chris Golden. The story is based on the comic of the same name, and in that story, Hellboy teams up with a rookie BPRD agent named Tom Ferrell, and find themselves stranded in 1950s rural Appalachia. “There, they discover a small community haunted by witches, led by a local devil with a troubling connection to Hellboy’s past: the Crooked Man.” The story will “expand Hellboy’s world through one of the most beloved issues of the comic series.”
Mignola recently talked about the project in an interview with Variety and when discussing the casting of Jack Kesy in the lead role, he said:
“I’ve never met him [Kesy]. I’ve only seen pictures, and I’ve seen him a little bit in films. He certainly has the look. Everybody who has worked with him says he’s fantastic. This thing’s being done very fast, so I think the fact that he’s great and he’s available, that’s me being a little bit of smart-ass about it, but I just have to trust that everybody is right.”
He went on to talk about director Brian Taylor’s (Crank, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Gamer) dark horror vision of the film saying:
“His intention is to make a horror movie, so that’ll be nice. That’ll be interesting. I read the new draft of the screenplay yesterday, and yes, it is definitely R. It’s the first Hellboy script that I read and I went, ‘Oh, it’s a horror movie,’ which is what I wanted. Taylor does not have a reputation as a horror movie director. But, so far, we’ve had two horror movie directors make Hellboy movies and we’ve never gotten a horror movie.
“For years, we’ve been saying, if you’re going to make a Hellboy movie, make it small. And the perfect story to do that with is my personal favorite, ‘The Crooked Man.’ I think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever written. It’s beautifully illustrated by Richard Corben, and it’s a solid story that doesn’t involve a million different characters. Everybody actually agreed from the very beginning, ‘Yes, we want to do that one.’ Budget-wise, it’s good because it’s a lower budget kind of a story. It’s not the Hellboy origin. It’s not Hellboy saving the world. It’s not huge. It’s a subtle, dark, little folk horror story.”
Mignola also talked about the last iteration of the film, and how he enjoyed David Harbour’s performance, saying: “Harbour certainly did not get a fair shake because I thought he was terrific. I thought there was a lot of stuff wrong with that movie, but Harbour was in no way one of the things that was wrong.”
I can’t help but be curious about this next Hellboy movie. I love the character and I would love to see another great movie, and with this one being set up as a horror film, that’s exciting! I just hope the creative team can pull off something awesome with it. I still wish that Guillermo del Toro would have been able to complete his trilogy!