Sometimes a particular celebrity’s response to a project is so on brand, you could practically predict what they have to say about it before you even click on the link. For legendary character actor and previous Hellboy lead Ron Perlman, you could probably guess that he hasn’t seen the failed 2019 reboot of the comic movie franchise he and director Guillermo del Toro turned into a trilogy. But can you guess why he hasn’t seen Stranger Things’ David Harbour slip into the horns he once made famous?
If you guessed out of sheer lack of interest, you’re pretty close to the truth. An interview with Empire saw Ron Perlman yet again discussing his history with the Hellboy saga, and his feelings on the second bite at the apple that crashed and burned pretty tremendously. In purely blunt Perlman fashion, here’s exactly why he hasn’t watched 2019’s reboot:
It was none of my business. It would only provoke me into whatever things I didn’t need to add to my list of grievances.
Ron Perlman is someone you can always trust to be square with you about any given subject, and his candor has led to some spectacular revelations in the world of Hellboy. One such bombshell was the fact that Perlman did have the opportunity to take the lead role in director Neil Marshall’s turn at bat with creator Mike Mignola’s comic legacy. But much as he had no interest in watching a new Hellboy he wasn’t a part of, Ron Perlman wanted no part in making a new installment without his trusted collaborator.
Further on in this recent interview, Perlman returned to his long held position that if you want to get him interested in the future of Hellboy, it has to involve Guillermo del Toro in the franchise cockpit. Still on the bandwagon to make Hellboy III happen once and for all, Ron Perlman reiterated this fact as follows:
If Guillermo were to wake up one day and say, ‘You know what Ron? We need to finish the trilogy,’ which is an idea that is near and dear to me, I’d be there in a heartbeat. But without him I have no interest in donning the make-up again. And you know, I just turned 70. So I would actually go down in history as being the oldest superhero!
As a story for Guillermo del Toro’s proposed threequel to his Hellboy trilogy was already worked out on paper, it could be as simple as a couple of phone calls to get that movie into the pipeline. But since it doesn’t look like that’s happening any time soon, not only will you probably never see Ron Perlman interested in Hellboy’s cinematic future ever again, you’ll probably never see Perlman playing a superhero role ever again. So you can watch the 2019 version of Hellboy all you want, just don’t expect Ron Perlman to RSVP to any potential watch parties you may have planned in the coming weeks.
