The creative relationship between Ron Perlman and Guillermo del Toro is one of the most solid in Hollywood, starting with Cronos in 1992 and including Blade II, Pacific Rim, Nightmare Alley, and Pinocchio. But their most memorable collaborations came in 2004’s Hellboy and 2008’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army, with Perlman perfectly cast as Mike Mignola‘s gruff demonic antihero in del Toro’s pair of fantastical comic book adaptations.
There have been two other live-action Hellboy movies since The Golden Army, including a 2019 would-be reboot starring Stranger Things‘ David Harbour and 2024’s direct-to-VOD Hellboy: The Crooked Man. But what fans are really hoping for is a third del Toro-Perlman Hellboy adventure, even though both director and star have said in the past that it probably isn’t in the cards.
However, that hasn’t stopped Perlman from floating fresh hope on occasion. In a new interview with Deadline, he enthusiastically endorsed the idea of Hellboy 3—with del Toro back at the helm, of course—happening some day.
“I’ve said so much about this and pissed off enough people, but I’ll say it again for you: the original movies were meant to be a trilogy,” Perlman explained. “In Hellboy II, we left off at a very awkward moment where the Liz Sherman character is pregnant with twins, and none of the promises of Hellboy being summoned into existence to destroy the world has been addressed. That would all have been in the third film, and I’ll always advocate for the making of the third film.”
Around the time of Frankenstein‘s release last year, del Toro said he was working on a violent action movie with Oscar Isaac called Fury. He also mentioned a stop-motion animated adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant. Could Hellboy creep back into the picture at some point? Perlman is willing if he is, even if it takes a few more years.
“I’m not interested in doing any other version of Hellboy other than finishing the trilogy with Guillermo [del Toro],” the actor said. “It would be so epic. Like a Greek epic. Hubris, hamartia, destiny, nature vs nurture, it would be such an adventure. I’m 76 now, and if he comes to me and I’m 86, we’ll still do the motherfucker.”
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