Chances are, Hellboy 3 isn't going to happen for Guillermo del Toro. 2004's original Hellboy cost Fox $66 million and made $99 million. In 2008, Universal brought us Hellboy II: The Golden Army, which cost more ($85 million) and made more ($160 million), but that wasn't been enough to bring around another Hellboy-ish adventure.
But the fans bang the Hellboy 3 drum, and they bang it hard. So hard, in fact, that del Toro hears it, then comments on how difficult it makes watching kaiju movies in his man cave. Here below is what he had to say about it all on this week's **Empire Podcast, but be warned: it's not all that encouraging.
"[The groundswell of support for Hellboy 3] has been very active. It’s really quite big. And we need to do it in the next six or seven years because Ron [Perlman] isn’t getting any younger, and I don’t think you want Hellboy chasing anyone in a Rascal. We need to do it soon!
"I could tell you the story from beginning to end right now. He turns into the beast of the apocalypse – spoilers there for those who like the comics – and needs to bring some apocalypse down. Right now, that bar has been raised considerably in the last three or four movies of the summer. Really bringing down the apocalypse is going to be a little expensive!
"I haven’t seen [The World’s End] yet, but I’ve seen Star Trek Into Darkness, where accidentally they destroy half of San Francisco. I’m not sure if Hellboy 3 will happen. I asked Mike [Mignola, the creator of the Hellboy comic books for Dark Horse Comics] if I could do it as a comic instead, and he said the comics were his domain. ‘In the comics, Hellboy does what I tell him to do,’ he says. That’s fair.
"So if that doesn’t work out, I’ll hold camp fires and sing Kumbayah and tell the story to everyone who wants to listen to it. Let’s do this: the moment Ron gets a Rascal, I’ll come back to the podcast tell you all the whole story."
Note to everyone in the world: don't buy Ron Perlman a Rascal. If you do, they'll be - wait for it - hell to pay. That said, if anyone *does *buy him a Rascal, be sure to let del Toro know and we can sort out the podcast studio for a good few hours.
Pacific Rim is out in UK cinemas now.