Summit Entertainment has released the first Hellboy trailer for the upcoming reboot. The new adaptations boasts a screenplay co-written by Hellboy comics creator Mike Mignola, with The Descent filmmaker Neil Marshall at the helm. David Harbour (Stranger Things) steps into the lead role of the titular demon, with Ian McShane filling the role of Hellboy’s adoptive father Trevor Bruttenholm, who also happens to be the founder of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. This new film also introduces Daniel Dae Kim as comics character Ben Daimio, with Milla Jovovich playing the antagonist Nimue, a medieval British sorceress who seeks to destroy humankind.

Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro previously adapted the Hellboy comics into two feature films starring Ron Perlman and had hoped to complete his trilogy, but Mignola opted to reboot the property instead with a new R-rated vision.

This looks...okay? It just doesn't seem significantly different enough from the previous movies to make a different. I'm curious to hear what fans of the comic have to say since I've heard they felt that Del Toro's movies lost the spirit of the books. But as someone who's read a few Hellboy comics and likes the idea of the character more than the execution, this just seems like a direct-to-video spin on the franchise. The effects look cheaper, the action looks less exciting, the production design has less personality, and David Harbour doesn't leave as much of an impression as Ron Perlman. I'll still give the movie a shot, but so far nothing is making the reboot really stand out.

Check out the Hellboy trailer below. The film also stars Sasha Lane, Brian Gleeson, Sophie Okonedo, Penelope Mitchell, and Allstair Petrie. Hellboy opens in theaters on April 12, 2019.

Based on the graphic novels by Mike Mignola, Hellboy, caught between the worlds of the supernatural and human, battles an ancient sorceress bent on revenge.

 

Summit Entertainment presents, Millennium Films presents, a Lawrence Gordon/Lloyd Levin production, in association with Dark Horse Entertainment, a Nu Boyana production, in association with Campbell Grobman Films.