HELLBOY Creator Mike Mignola Has "Mixed Feelings" About Early Films but Thinks THE CROOKED MAN Is the Best
Hellboy creator Mike Mignola recently opened up about the upcoming new film Hellboy: The Crooked Man, which is a project he’s been involved with throughout the whole process.
He wrote the script for the film with Christopher Golden, and it’s a project that he’s very much enjoyed being a part of. He wasn’t as heavily involved with the previous film projects as he was with this one.
While speaking to GamesRadar+, Mignola explained: "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.
“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."
He went on to say: "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. So the idea of actually trying to get that stuff on screen was really exciting."
Mignola went on to talk about the previous Hellboy movies and admits that he has mixed feelings about them: "Every one of them has been a very different experience.
“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 Crooked Man was directed by Crank helmer Brian Taylor, and Mignola talked about working with him on the film, saying: "When we first talked, Brian said, 'Let's just go back to the way the real story was written.’ So you think you might be in good company when that happens."
Mignola goes on to say that he is so happy with how the new movie turned out: "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."
Out of all the Hellboy movies that have been made, Mignola obviously believes that The Crooked Man is the best one.
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.”
I’m excited to see how this movie turns out!