More Hollywood Actors Played Hellboy Than You Likely Realized

While Guillermo del Toro’s «Hellboy» films were never financial juggernauts, they were critical successes and have since garnered a cult-like following. Released in the mid-2000s, the del Toro and Ron Perlman-led films debuted before the proliferation of Marvel projects, making them unique, gritty gems in the comic book genre. Since then, superhero films have become big business and it made sense to reboot Hellboy with a fresh new face. Helmed by veteran «Game of Thrones» director Neil Marshall, the film debuted in 2019 to poor reviews and failed to make an impression at the box office — it raked in $53 million on a $50 million budget. 

David Harbour, who has since become the Red Guardian in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, believes the film failed to find an audience because of the loyalty fans had to Perlman’s version of the half-Demon. «I think it failed before we began shooting because I think that people didn’t want us to make the movie … Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman created this iconic thing that we thought could be reinvented … the loudness of the internet was like, ‘We do not want you to touch this,’» Harbour said in an Instagram live (via Screen Rant). 

Prior to the maligned reboot’s release, Perlman revealed he had no interest in joining a «Hellboy»-centric project without del Toro. «The reboot was something I had the opportunity to participate in and decided that the only version of Hellboy I’m interested in is the one I do with Guillermo and so in walking away from it,» he told Comic Book Movie.