New 'HELLBOY II' pics, plus 'HELLBOY III'?
Universal has released some new images from the upcoming Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and director Guillermo del Toro mentions that he's open to a third film.
The Comics Continuum has gotten hold of three fresh pics from Hellboy II: The Golden Army. The images show Ron Perlman as Hellboy, Doug Jones as Abe Sapien and Selma Blair as Liz Sherman.
Guillermo del Toro, who directed and co-wrote the upcoming comic-based sequel, told SCI FI Wire's IAN SPELLING that he and 'Hellboy' creator Mike Mignola fashioned the second flick so that it lays the groundwork for a possible third film, but that #2 could satisfactorily close out the story.
"The way Mike and I did approach this was, when we were told, 'Think about something, if you want, for a sequel,' we went away and...I said, 'Let's come up with an arc that makes sense for us for the second and third movie.'"
In Hellboy II, the truce is broken between mankind and the invisible realm of the fantastic, and a merciless figure (played by Blade II's Luke Goss) seizes the opportunity to attempt a hostile take-over of Earth. That's when the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense team--Hellboy, Sherman, Sapien and new character Johann--go into action.
"We said, 'This is the story. This is how we end in the third movie,'" said the director. "And then I went in and wrote a self-conclusive screenplay [for the second movie]. So if there's never a third one, I'm perfectly at peace."
Del Toro also reported that his long-planned movie adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness tops the list of projects he hopes to direct once he's done with Hellboy. He has spent nearly five years developing a film based on Lovecraft's 1931 novella about an expedition in Antarctica that discovers the remains of ancient creatures that were killed by their shapeshifting servants, the shoggoths, who still live.
"If Mountains of Madness could happen, I would do it in a second," he said in an interview. "But there is no one knocking at my door with the budget, saying, 'Let's make it.'"
Hellboy II: The Golden Army opens July 11, 2008.
[Thanks to CBR's HANNIBAL TABU for the SciFi Wire link.]