Hellboy: The Crooked Man is breaking new ground for a comic book movie, at least according to director Brian Taylor, by respecting its source material.
The upcoming reboot, which is the fourth overall installment in the Hellboy film series, is based on the limited series of the same name by Mike Mignola. Set in the 1950s, The Crooked Man follows Hellboy and a rookie Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense agent as they get stranded in rural Appalachia. Here, they discover a small community haunted by witches and led by The Crooked Man, a local devil with a troubling connection to Hellboy’s past.
While speaking with Screen Rant at San Diego Comic-Con 2024, Taylor — who was a co-writer on Jonah Hex (2010) and co-directed Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011) — was asked if he applied any of the lessons he learned while working on his previous superhero efforts to Hellboy: The Crooked Man.
“There were a lot of things not to do on some of those films, but this was a unique one,” Taylor explained. “A lot of times with comic book movies and things like that, filmmakers and studios feel it’s their mission to reinvent. ‘We have to fix it. We want to do our version, and we want to expand it,’ and this and that. This was not the mission on this film at all.”
Hellboy: The Crooked Man won’t reinvent the beloved comic book for the big screen
The director continued, “On this one, my feeling about it was really clear. We’re working with one of the most beloved, iconic, and singular comic books ever. Our job is to keep it simple, and we’re really adapting this piece of comic book literature with as much love, attention to detail, and authenticity as we can.”
Hellboy: The Crooked Man is also unique in that it brought on the creator of the source material to help write the screenplay. Mignola worked alongside Taylor and Christopher Golden to adapt the 2008 limited comic book series to the big screen. “I didn’t want it to be a loose adaptation. I wanted something that felt like what I love about the comic,” Mignola told Screen Rant.
Jack Kesy leads the cast of Hellboy: The Crooked Man as the titular heroic demon, with Martin Bassindale as Jeremiah Witkins/Crooked Man and Professor Trevor “Broom” Bruttenholm, Jefferson White as Tom Ferrell, Adeline Rudolph as Bobbie Jo Song, Joseph Marcell as Reverend Nathaniel Armstrong Watts, Leah McNamara as Effie Kolb, and Hannah Margetson as Cora Fisher.
Hellboy: The Crooked Man does not yet have a North American release date, but will hit theaters in the United Kingdom and Ireland on September 27, 2024.
