Throughout film history, you’ll find many projects that came close to the finish line, but never got there. It’s one of the tragedies of the business. A legion of great stories that could have been and never were. One of those is Guillermo del Toro‘s Hellboy 3, which was supposed to cap a trilogy based on the comic character created by Mike Mignola and starring Ron Perlman. For a host of reasons, it never happened. But Ron Perlman is still out here to remind us: never say never.
In a recent chat with Deadline, the actor was asked about Hellboy 3 and whether he’d ever return to the role of the big red guy. Said Perlman, “I’ve said so much about this and pissed off enough people, but I’ll say it again for you: the original movies were meant to be a trilogy. In Hellboy II, we left off at a very awkward moment where the Liz Sherman character is pregnant with twins, and none of the promises of Hellboy being summoned into existence to destroy the world has been addressed. That would all have been in the third film, and I’ll always advocate for the making of the third film.“
Continued the actor, “I’m not interested in doing any other version of Hellboy other than finishing the trilogy with Guillermo [Del Toro]. It would be so epic. Like a Greek epic. Hubris, hamartia, destiny, nature vs nurture, it would be such an adventure. I’m 76 now, and if he comes to me and I’m 86, we’ll still do the motherfucker.“
Hell. Yes. Perlman has always been a blunt guy, and I love his response here. You’d better believe I’d still line up to watch him play Hellboy again, 86 or not.
But wait, there’s more. When the interviewer pushed by asking if Perlman still speaks with del Toro about Hellboy 3, the actor simply replied, “No comment“.
He could’ve said no. He could’ve said yes. But “no comment” makes me think something could still be in the works. Perlman wouldn’t want to reveal their hand if that was the case. Of course, it could also mean nothing, but I’m in a glass-half-full mood today, so I’m taking this as a hint that we just might see more of Perlman as Hellboy someday.
Until then, I’ll keep a big red fist raised for those first two movies. They’re two of the better comic book films out there.
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