The 3rd Hellboy film was released after an agonisingly long wait, but hardly anyone was satisfied with it. Today the fantasy horror film is on TV.
It has been an exciting development in recent years: If only enough fans shouted loud enough, they would get the sequel to their beloved film. That happened with Zombieland, with Pacific Rim – and with Hellboy. None of the sequels turned out really well, but Hellboy – Call of Darkness is a particularly bad example that also had fatal consequences for the franchise.
What is the Hellboy reboot about?
The powerful Hellboy (David Harbour) works for the B.P.R.D. (Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense), which was started by his adoptive father Trevor Bruttenholm (Ian McShane). He must go to England, where Merlin’s consort, the Blood Queen Nimue (Milla Jovovich) wants to bring about the end of the world with a massive battle.
Hellboy must now avert this scenario. In the process, he encounters a wide variety of supernatural figures such as Ben Daimio (Daniel Dae Kim), who is capable of transforming into a jaguar, and Alice Monaghan (Sasha Lane), who was once kidnapped by elves.
What’s going on?
What went wrong with Call of Darkness
The 3rd Hellboy installment came 11 years after part 2, The Golden Army. The film spent half an eternity in production hell. Read up on details here. The long wait would have been bearable if the film had at least completed the longed-for trilogy. But that is exactly what Hellboy – Call of Darkness did not do. The fact that Marshall’s attempt was not particularly successful was only the cherry on top of the cake. Call of Darkness visibly tried to revive the gruff charm of the original. But the attempts ended in pseudo-cool sayings and exaggeratedly hard violence. Hellboy failed with the critics and got a bloody nose at the box office: a budget of 50 million US dollars was offset by a box office take of 55 million US dollars.
