Also in the hopper for Mignola, a new Hellboy film, “Hellboy: The Crooked Man.” After a disappointing re-launch with “Stranger Things” actor David Harbour,
it’s back to the drawing board with a brand new anti-hero, Jack Kesy.
“I’ve never met him [Kesy],” Mignola revealed. “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.”
The creator has also yet to see Kesy in the full makeup but emphasizes that he trusts director Brian Taylor’s vision, “His intention is to make a horror movie, so that’ll be nice. That’ll be interesting.” Based off his comic “The Crooked Man,” Mignola co-wrote the screenplay with Chris Golden and director Taylor also did his own “spin” on their work. And while the drafts have varied with each iteration, the R-rating has stayed the same. “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.”
