Del Toro: Hellboy 3 Would Take "The Mother Of All Kickstarters"

[Andy Chalk]

Del Toro: Hellboy 3 Would Take "The Mother Of All Kickstarters"

There's a simple reason why Guillermo del Toro hasn't yet made Hellboy 3: It's too expensive.

I didn't personally care for it, but the Hellboy II: The Golden Army [http://www.amazon.com/Hellboy-Directors-Blu-ray-Ron-Perlman/dp/B000OT6V00/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357841672&sr=8-1&keywords=Hellboy], were reasonably successful and popular films. Given the film industry's affection for sequels and franchises, not to mention the fact that Hellboy II came out in 2008, you might then reasonably wonder why we haven't seen or heard anything about Hellboy 3.

As it turns out, it's just too expensive. Inflation in Hollywood must be terrible, because del Toro said the budget for the third film would be almost triple that of the first, and nobody's interested in footing that kind of bill.

"A couple of weeks ago or months ago, I did make a couple of phone calls to test, to gauge the possibility of doing that because it's a big movie," he told Latino Review. "There's no takers for a movie of that size. The two movies made their money back and a little bit. They were financially good, but one was $50 [million] and the other one was $80, $85. This is $140. So no one wants to do that leap, from the financial side."

And while the generosity of the masses has famously breathed new life into long-dormant game franchises, there's a world of difference between a $2 million indie videogame and a $140 million big-budget Hollywood production, a fact not lost on del Toro. "Unless we find a way to do the mother of all Kickstarters," he said, it's just not going to happen.

Source: Latino Review [http://latino-review.com/2013/01/09/exclusive-talking-mama-executive-producer-guillermo-del-toro/]



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[Genocidicles]

Hellboy II came out in 2005?


Damn...

 

[AgentCooper]

Wrong Del Toro I believe. It should be Guillermo Del Toro.

I would like to see a Hellboy sequel. I liked the second movie better than the first since the first movie left me feeling kind of empty about it.

 

[Sean Kay]

Benicio Del Toro? Don't you mean Guillermo Del Toro?
On topic, I'm sad that Hellboy III is considered too much of a risk to take, but he is right that Kickstarter woudln't help with it. I do think it could show there is support for the film out there, but you'd need to be a fair away into pre-production to really ask people

 

[Callate]

I kind've liked it about the Hellboy movies that they weren't $100 million+ blockbusters. I would, shall we say, like what it says about Hollywood that there would be another one, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Damn shame, honestly. I'd love seeing more of the big red guy.

I'm just throwing that out there, but maybe the projected third movie could actually stand to have a lower budget. A lot of good stuff can come out of fairly restrictive pockets. That just means less CGI, less signature Del Toro fantasy. Practical effects done for cheaper.

I think the fans could stomach it. Non-fans might be a bit repulsed, but anybody who seriously cares should be able to stick some water in their wine.

 

[The White Hunter]

Ehh just make cheaper effects or something? Less budget blowing CGI or whatever.

I'd love to see a Hellboy 3 though I love the first 2 films.

 

[Tamrin]

Benicio del Toro? Oh Andy.

It must be one of those days.

 

[BreakfastMan]

Good. Those Hellboy movies were complete crap, I don't want to see Del Toro ruin the franchise further.

 

[Nouw]

Ah that sucks, I really liked the movies and my dad loved them too. Maybe something will come up in the future.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

I think there's a much bigger reason why Benicio Del Toro hasn't made Hellboy III /snark.

It's a shame, I really liked the first two (admittedly the first more than the second, but the second did look better).

 

[Nghtgnt]

Is it me, or is it kind of sad how M. Night Shyamalan keeps getting to make movies while del Toro, who isn't the greatest director but certainly good, can't get a movie done in a franchise that has been profitable in the past? In fact, it's almost odd given that Hellboy is a comic book IP and after the success of The Avengers and Christopher Nolan's Batman you'd imagine that would be all the rage right now.

But I digress...

Let's see how Pacific Rim does - if it succeeds he should get enough clout to do At The Mountains of Madness, and should that be successful then maybe the executives at Universal will re-look the idea.

 

[Denamic]

Why do they have to have a budget that could feed a small country for a year?

 

[ciancon]

It's already been pointed out four times but; Benicio!? Haha great mistake, don't you dare change it!

Also: I'd give 'em some money. I didn't think much of the first one but I loved Hellboy 2!

 

[Signa]

Uh, Hellboy 2 was '08. I remember because I had two free movie tickets, and I spent them on that movie, and The Dark Knight. Also, IMDB confirms it.

 

[Andy Chalk]

Jeeeeeeeeeeeezus.

Wow. Yes, Guillermo.

 

[The_Darkness]

Uh... Why the higher price? You have props and costumes from the previous films. You have actors that would (I'm assuming) be happy to come back to their roles. Scene construction should cost about the same, if not a bit less if there are other leftovers...

CGI? A crazy bombastic script? Those are the only two answers I can think of, but there are ways around both of them...

 

[Bobic]

Hellboy II came out in 2005?


Damn...

According to imdb it came out in 2008, much more believable to me, as I remember seeing it in the cinema, and it didn't seem that long ago.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0411477/

So that may be another error to correct.

OT: Enjoyed Hellboys 1+2 yadda yadda yadda, shame we won't get a third.

 

[Therumancer]

Uh... Why the higher price? You have props and costumes from the previous films. You have actors that would (I'm assuming) be happy to come back to their roles. Scene construction should cost about the same, if not a bit less if there are other leftovers...

CGI? A crazy bombastic script? Those are the only two answers I can think of, but there are ways around both of them...

Well, as much as we'd like to say the FX and quality don't matter that much, they do matter, and we'd be up in arms if the movie came out and it looked like crap. Not to mention cheezy-Troma-type FX aren't going to fly with a movie intended to be released to the general public in general.

Also consider that Ron Pearlman isn't quite the "hidden weapon" of the B-movie scene he used to be. He's become a lot better known, and while he still does some lesser project, consider he's signed to "Sons Of Anarchy" at the moment and that show seems to be good to go for another few years at least. Even if they wind up killing his character they are likely to still keep him around under contract to show up in frequent flashbacks for however much longer the show runs.

As to why the higher price, the answer is simply greed. It's the same exact thing that affects video games. All those workers demand increasingly higher amounts of money, this ranges from the graphics techs, to the camera-men, to the gofer who runs for sandwiches, to the grips who move stuff around. When it comes to video games for example we like to think of developers as living hand to mouth, and they sell that image, the truth is though that the cost of office space, and some computers to work on is minimal compared to the amount of money going into game budgets, most of it going directly into human resources. It's caused some nasty back and forths, but there have been exposes on it in the past with Maxim running articles like "Why Game Developers Drive Ferraris" (which I believe even got mentioned on The Escapist... I think I have the title right, it broke down what people in differant parts of the industry and game design process were reporting making per-year to the authorities if I remember), every year these guys want even bigger raises, that trickles down to the producers/publishers and what they need to pay for game development. At the end of the day there isn't a lot of "materials" involved. This applies to movies as well, renting/building sets, and buying/using cameras and editing equipment is NOT cheap, but it's minimal in cost compared to the guys being paid to use that equipment, who demand more and more money, which causes the cost to produce the same basic movies to go up. In part this is fueled by the success of movies as well, after all when movies are pulling in hundreds of millions in profits the guys working the Cameras and such go "well, if your making that, then I should be getting paid more!", they need cameramen and other people that are increasingly unionized (I seem to remember hearing some stuff about that as well) so they pay it, the cost of movies goes up, and it becomes a bigger risk. The point about rambling about video games as well is to show that it's apparently an issue with media in general.

At any rate, it doesn't surprise me, 7 years is a long time for things to have compounded, and ultimatly with the budget almost doubling, this means the film would have to make even more money than the previous ones to be worthwhile.

Then as I mentioned, Ron Pearlman who is the star, doesn't seem to exactly be hurting for work right now. You'd have to pay him enough to basically outbid other people vying for his services, and also probably work around his TV shooting schedule.

At the end of the day this is the kind of movie you'd only expect to get made as a leap of faith by the people at the helm. You'd need for Del Toro and/or Ron Pearlman to come out and produce it out of their own pockets (which does happen). The very fact that it would need a kickstarter shows there isn't the interest, and the guys who would be most interested (potentially) in seeing this made don't think it would be profitable. With a Kickstarter there really isn't a producer demanding returns on the investment, which is part of the point, that money being donated is kind of "free" to the developers.