Today's News: Hellboy 3 has gone to hell

Sad news today, as this reached my ears and accordingly, my pen:

http://www.moviescene.nl/p/156560/del_toro_ziet_geen_toekomst_voor_hellboy_3

I really hoped a Hellboy 3 would find its way into production some day. Both the director of the first two movies (Guillermo del Toro) and its principal star (Ron Perlman) remained genuinely enthusiastic about making a third movie, which is not something you often see in Hollywood after two previous installments (when the creative novelty had decidedly worn off). But now it seems reality has caught up with them and those scores of fans who cherished the notion of giving this particular devil his further due. In hindsight it's kind of a miracle we even got a second movie (and what a great movie that was, surpassing its predecessor on every level!). The first movie didn't do so well in theaters, but made a tidy profit as a home cinema release. Didn't stop studio Sony from denying Del Toro a second go at the big red ape, at which point studio Universal took over the project which became the phenomenal Hellboy II: The Golden Army.  History repeated itself as once again profits were only reaped from the DVD sales as opposed to the theatrical release. And now that the safety net of the home cinema market has disappeared as DVD/Blu-Ray sales keep deteriorating, what studio would burn its hands on a franchise that proved a box office failure twice before for two different studios? The answer is: none. And Del Toro has come to terms with that. Even though he remains a popular director in Hollywood, he's not yet one of those grand director/producer big shots who can do as whatever the hell they please, like James Cameron, Steven Spielberg or Peter Jackson. In fact, the studio system is slowly but surely imploding, making it increasingly harder even for such big industry names to follow their cinematic dreams, faced with the financial realities as they ever more often are (case in point, Spielberg's Robopocalypse).

It's a damn shame a wonderful character like Hellboy has fallen prey to such depressing reality checks as well. Hellboy II: The Golden Army was a definite step up in every way from the first film, which I can only describe as 'good enough' in comparison. Plus, there was definitely an ungoing character story going on between the titular character and his highly flammable girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair) on the one side and Hellboy's undeniably dark nature on the other, that warranted a resolution. It has been hinted on several occasions throughout the movies that Hellboy, despite all his intents and purposes to do so, could not escape his diabolical destiny and was forced to become a force of evil of sorts sooner rather than later. It would have been a great operatic, though admittedly unusually dark and depressing, turn of events for this otherwise fairly light hearted and good humoured series. Which of course entirely fits into Del Toro's oeuvre, riddled as it is with such ungoing dichotomies between both sides of the human moral condition. Plus loads of awesome monsters, both latex and digital, to grace the silver screen and freak the bejeesus out of audiences. Exactly what makes Del Toro's movies such fun, that ever intriguing combination of soulful, heartfelt human drama and moody monstrous atmosphere. Too bad we won't be likely to see Hellboy serve in such capacity no more. Oh well, there's still plenty of other projects on Del Toro's slate. Pacific Rim 2 maybe? Less story, more monster action. These days, we'll have to take whatever we can get.