Only one word out of Hollywood has the power to excite while simultaneously instilling dread: reboot. It’s literally everywhere right now. Superman, Pirates of the Caribbean, Smurfs, Masters of the Universe, Harry Potter… you name a franchise that ever had a modicum of success once upon a time, and you can guarantee some bright mind is working on resuscitating it “for today’s audience.” Sometimes it works, and other times it just simply doesn’t. Take Hellboy, the 2004 superhero classic now streaming on HBO Max. Hellboy has been rebooted twice now, and neither has captured the magic of the original.
2004’s ‘Hellboy’ Is the Perfect Marriage of Director, Lead, and Project

Image via Columbia Pictures

Hellboy is based on the Dark Horse Comics character who debuted in 1993, with the story inspired by the first mini-series, Hellboy: Seeds of Destruction. Being neither a Marvel nor DC property, Hellboy was a literal unknown to the masses on its release in 2004. But positive critical reception and word-of-mouth pushed Hellboy to just shy of the $100 million mark worldwide and prompted a sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, which did even better at just over $160 million. By rights, Hellboy shouldn’t have succeeded the way it did, but it had two major factors that pushed the film to become one of Rolling Stone’s Top 50 Greatest Superhero Movies of All Time: director Guillermo del Toro and Hellboy himself, Ron Perlman. For del Toro, Hellboy was right in his wheelhouse. Between it and the sequel, del Toro was able to create the stunning, fantastical visuals he’s known for in films like Pan’s Labyrinth. It also played towards his innate ability to humanize monsters, characterized strongly by one major element he changed from the comic books: Hellboy’s relationship with Liz Sherman, played by Selma Blair. In the comics, their relationship is platonic, but by adding a romantic element, Hellboy becomes that much more relatable and human.

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As far as Perlman’s portrayal of Hellboy, he absolutely nails it, comfortably giving the character a humanity, a great sense of humor, and a look straight out of the comics. The whole premise is absurd, but Perlman honors it by playing Hellboy the only way that works: by grounding the character, making him conscious of the unnatural world he’s part of but treating it naturally. Perlman is certainly no stranger to bringing monsters to life, playing the titular beast Vincent in the 1987-90 CBS series Beauty and the Beast, so he was already attuned to what it takes to make a monster’s humanity shine. With a fantastic cast and a truly unique story, Hellboy earned its place as one of the greatest superhero movies.
The ‘Hellboy’ Reboots Simply Cannot Recapture the Magic

Despite the success of the first two films, a long-hoped-for Hellboy 3, reuniting del Toro with Perlman, never came to fruition, lacking financing and the support of the studio. Instead, efforts were put into a reboot of the franchise with 2019’s Hellboy, starring David Harbour as the titular hero. While Harbour himself was generally well-received as the character, the film itself was critically reviled, lacking the fun and passion that filled the original films. Then, in 2024, Hellboy: The Crooked Man, an adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name, was released. It is technically a reboot, but by the slimmest of definitions. It has a new Hellboy, with Jack Kesy earning plaudits for his portrayal (Collider cites him as “phenomenal” in its review), and the film itself is a definite step up from the 2019 debacle. But it never received a theatrical release, simply dropped on VOD with little fanfare. That may have been in its favor, however, given how bad its low-budget and crap-ass CGI would look on a big screen. The reason why the two reboots didn’t work, and why a reboot likely never will, goes back to those two major factors that made the first two films in the Hellboy franchise a success. The reboots were made to just be movies, but to del Toro, his were passion projects, not just movies, but a chance to do what he does best, and that passion comes through. And while both Harbour and Kesy did justice to the character, they aren’t Perlman. Perlman is the definitive Hellboy, period. It’s very much like the difference between the portrayals of Batman and Superman on film—everyone has an opinion on who their favorite Batman is because there isn’t a definitive take everyone can agree on. But Christopher Reeve is Superman, the definitive take that everyone, including the newest actor to don the cape, David Corenswet, is measured against. It’s virtually impossible to unseat a king, as they say, let alone two, and until someone comes along that has the same passion for Hellboy as del Toro, with an actor that knows the character like Perlman, a Hellboy reboot will always fall short.

Hellboy

Release Date

April 2, 2004

Runtime

122 minutes

Director

Guillermo del Toro

Writers

Guillermo del Toro, Peter Briggs, Mike Mignola

Producers

Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin, Mike Richardson

Selma Blair

Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Sherman