Director of new R-rated Hellboy movie says he approached it like a Stephen King adaptation: “It’s a horror story”

Hellboy is going full horror in new adaptation, Hellboy: The Crooked Man, an R-rated reimagining of Mike Mignola’s comic books. 

This time around, Jack Kesy dons the iconic prosthetics to play the superpowered demon based on the limited series of the same name. Set in the ’50s, it follows Hellboy in rural Appalachia as he finds himself mixed up with a small community haunted by witches. Controlling the malevolence is a devil-like figure called the Crooked Man. 

The early trailers have teased the dark tone of the new reboot, as well as leaning into the scares. “It’s a horror story, it’s a horror film – it’s very simple,” director Brian Taylor told GamesRadar+ at San Diego Comic-Con recently.

“I took to this like, ‘This is an adaptation. I’m adapting the story the way I would adapt a Stephen King story, it’s all there in the texts. I’m just gonna execute it with as much love and care as we can.’ I think fans of the original comic book are gonna love this. I know already like there’s people online who’ve seen the teasers and things like that and they’re like, ‘This is the comic.’ That’s what we want.”

Taylor also explained that it was important to keep The Crooked Man separate from what we’ve seen on screen before. After all, Hellboy has been adapted several times before, including three-live action movies, Hellboy (2004) and its sequel The Golden Army (2008), and the 2019 reboot film Hellboy.

“I knew we weren’t gonna be referential to the other films at all, they’re their own thing,” Taylor added. “They’re great but this is not a this is not a space opera, right? It’s a folklore story, it’s contained. It’s an attempt to make things a little simpler, I think. I kind of feel like movies have got really, really complicated. And we’re talking about this I mean, movies nowadays, it’s like two or three hours long and an hour of that people explaining things and I still don’t understand it.”

The director, previously best known for his work on Crank and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, continued: “It makes me tired. I think a beautiful folk horror story is a simple thing, and that’s how we approached it.”

Hellboy: The Crooked Man is due to be released in 2024. For more upcoming movies, check out our breakdown of 2024 release dates and new superhero movies on the way.