The powers that be are green lighting an R-Rated Hellboy.  Can this be true? If so, what should the film be? Here we go again!

A new reboot of Hellboy is in the works and Collider had the exclusive.

Here is what we know so far –

Director: Brian Taylor

Starring: TBA, but Taylor says he wants a younger Hellboy.

Source Material: Hellboy’s “The Crooked Man,” a three issue limited series written by Mike Mignola and illustrated by Richard Corben.

Screenplay by: Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden.

A brief synopsis from the Wiki:

Wandering in the Appalachian mountains in 1958 (after “finishing up some stuff down South”), Hellboy encounters Tom Ferrell, a native of the region returning for the first time in decades to atone for his youthful initiation as a witch. Ferrell has never practiced magic but carries a “witch-bone” which has gotten him safely through his travels and his service in World War II.

As a longtime fan of the comic series, it should be noted that the films have never hit the same notes and tone as the award winning comics.

Guillermo Del Toro’s Hellboy Is Not The Hellboy Of The Comics

As brilliant as GDT is and as enjoyable as his Hellboy films are – they are not representative of creator/writer/artist Mike Mignola’s Hellboy. Similar to how Tim Burton’s Batman films are very specifically “Tim Burton’s Batman.”  The same can be said of Christopher Nolan’s interpretation of the same character.

And so the entertainment of watching any of the Hellboy films is a completely different experience than the joy of reading a Hellboy comic written and illustrated by Mignola, with colors handled by legendary artist Dave Steward. These experiences are entirely different things. The characters are different, the stories are different, the lighting and color schemes are different. Some might say too different.

Simply put, the Hellboy readers all know and love from the books have never seen the big screen – and this begs the question –

What Does The Dream Hellboy The Motion Picture Actually Look Like?

The core rhythm and tone should not be that of an action film. Hellboy is not a tentpole actioner to be directed by James Cameron. Similarly, it is not a BAY-HEM film – or at least it should not be.

The character of Hellboy is a lost soul trying to find his way in the world. He is abandoned and searching. He is not an upbeat smartass, he is introspective and damaged and the tone of the film should reflect that. Think of a film set right between Oh Brother, Where Art Thou and No Country For Old Men. There is a sprinkling of cut-away shots that Terrence Malick has a penchant for.

These cut-aways do appear more in Japanese entertainment but are a rarity here in the U.S. These beauty shots only need to happen three times or so in the film – but they need to be there. It is what Scott McCloud referred to as an “Aspect to Aspect” shot and you cannot think of Hellboy in any good translation without them.

Going back to the Coen Bros, the bleached out look of OBWAT and NCfOM closely matches the hues and color pallet of the great Dave Stewart colors. And keep the color red to a minimum. Realistically, use it for Hellboy and that should be it. A Hellboy movie should not have the sparkly look of a Harry Potter movie. Similarly, the violence should be in a different gear than the rest of the film. When it comes to the carnage, we are not talking about wild gristly violence. After all, there are a lot of slug-fest brawls that take place in the comics including one involving a shovel in The Crooked Man.

All of this leads to why the franchise has struggled – the fans – the core fanbase of Hellboy has never seen a true and faithful interpretation of the character or the series. One of the reasons the MCU took off so successfully is they were smart enough to give us a pure shot of 200 Proof no-bull Marvel Comics Characters operating in a real and true MCU. The real fans were salivating at the thought of a real smartass Tony Stark flying around as shell head and swashbuckling through a movie.

Simply put, give us the real character in a real and true Hellboy environment. Reward the readers and they will reward the production.