‘Hellboy II: The Golden Army’ Director Guillermo Del Toro Believes We Won’t See Anything Like The Practical Effects In His Duology Again “In Our Lifetime”
20 years ago, Guillermo del Toro dipped his toes into comic book cinema with his adaptation of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy. It boasted del Toro’s signature style of grotesque fantasy and translating Mignola’s visual wonders into the fairy world of the Oscar winner was received auspiciously enough to earn a sequel.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army was released in 2008, and although it was up against the domination of The Dark Knight, and the humble beginnings of the MCU, it held its own. The film grossed about $169 million against an $82 -85M budget and was nominated for its make-up effects at the Academy Awards and the Saturn Awards, among other honors.
The vast majority of those effects were done practically – except for the obvious outliers like the fairy hordes and misty, ectoplasmic agent Johann Krauss – in what del Toro calls a “makeup FX/puppet extravaganza.” Looking back on the marvel of Hellboy II 16 years later on Bluesky, where the director is moving his social media interactions, he laments an event like it may never be seen again in our lifetimes.
RELATED: Guillermo Del Toro Provides Update On His Upcoming Frankenstein Movie
Wrote del Toro, “And I will venture that it’s the last make up FX / puppet extravaganza we will see in our lifetime. Dozens upon dozens of creations- many of them elaborate animatronics [that] were created for this film. We utilized several make up FX studios and gave almost every creature a cameo in which to shine. Sigh”.
The villain Nuada (Luke Goss) and his sister, Nuala (Anna Walton), had the biggest chance to shine as the main antagonists. Moreover, they were joined by all the magical creatures of the secret Troll Market, the giant troll Wink, and the legless Bethmoora troll who built the titular army. Other characters, meanwhile, received deeper development – most notably Abe Sapien (Doug Jones).
11 years later, the Hellboy film series and cinema, on the whole, showed a greater, and detrimental, reliance on CGI to render all monsters and environments. The 2019 Hellboy starring David Harbour suffered because of this and is not remembered fondly by most – not even its director Neil Marshall, who regrets making a movie he didn’t write.
Talk of a sequel to Golden Army persisted until 2017 when del Toro reported on Twitter with “100%” certainty that a third movie won’t happen, which is unfortunate. The auteur’s signature touch is what made the property work nigh flawlessly on the silver screen.
A second reboot – Hellboy: The Crooked Man – came out this year, but it screened internationally before being dumped on video-on-demand. To date, the film has only made $2M on a budget of $20M.
RELATED: ‘Hellboy’ Director Neil Marshall Doesn’t Think The Character Is Meant For The Big Screen
More About:Movie News
Read This Next
