New Hellboy Photo: David Harbour's Big Red Is On The Run
Big Red's got his running shoes on.
On Monday, November 26, Empire unveiled a brand-new photo from the upcoming Hellboy movie, which stars Stranger Things favorite David Harbour as the titular red-skinned, sometimes-fully-horned devil dude.
Released as a tease for the magazine's January 2019 issue, the snap features Harbour's Hellboy running through an underground chamber (perhaps the bowels of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense?) either toward safety or away from an unseen danger. The literal heavy-handed demon wears a scowl on his face and an open trench coat over his thickly muscled body, looking much like he does in the Mike Mignola-created comic books.
A page-accurate physicality is just one of a few important things director Neil Marshall has folded from the source material into the Hellboy film. The Dog Soldiers and The Descent filmmaker told Empire that the R-rated flick will press hard on the gas and drive beyond into the lands of horror, gore, and violence.
"It was always a case of, 'When in doubt, go back to the source material.' Some of the stuff is pretty sick," Marshall said, teasing that the reboot film as "more violent and more bloody" than Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy from 2004 and Hellboy II: The Golden Army from 2008. He added, "We weren't making it with handcuffs on."
While we can largely take Marshall at his word judging by this newly released photo — the color palette is dark and the aesthetic moody, and Harbour's Hellboy looks like he's caught in a situation that can only end in bloodshed — we previously watched the leaked Hellboy trailer and it didn't exactly scream "pedal-to-the-metal horror fare." In fact, the first-look footage that was screened at New York Comic-Con (and later made its way online thanks to a rule-breaking attendee who uploaded the clip to Facebook) was more Deadpool than drop-dead spooky — and was definitely a far cry from the "real monster movie that's dark and scary and about the end of the world" that Harbour once spoke of. Set to Billy Idol's "Mony Mony" and featuring one-liners of the Guardians of the Galaxy variety, the Hellboy trailer was light in tone and on the gritty elements fans have been longing to see.
But maybe Hellboy really is brooding and blood, and maybe what was shown at NYCC isn't the finalized Hellboy trailer, as studio Lionsgate hasn't yet rolled out any official footage as of this writing. On the other hand, maybe it is, and Marshall and co. simply chose to subvert expectations with a campy trailer and save the gore-soaked stuff for the silver screen. With the film only a few months out from its launch date, an official trailer should be coming soon. The truth shall be revealed when that happens.
Written by Mignola, Andrew Cosby, Christopher Golden, and Aron Coleite, Hellboy also stars Milla Jovovich as Nimue the Blood Queen, Ian McShane as Hellboy's adoptive father Trevor Bruttenholm, Sasha Lane as Alice Monaghan, and Daniel Dae Kim as Ben Daimio, among others. Catch the film in theaters on April 12, 2019. In the meantime, feast your eyes on the newest photo from Hellboy below.
Empire Magazine