Hellboy failed because of Hellboy fans according to David Harbour

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

If you're feeling as your temperature is on the rise, it could be because STRANGER THINGS and BLACK WIDOW actor David Harbour is once again fanning the flames of judgement with regard to the overall failure of Neil Marshall's HELLBOY, in which Harbour played the title character.

Recently while participating in an Instagram live event, Harbour explained, “I think it failed before we began shooting because I think that people didn’t want us to make the movie.” Harbour then added, “Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman created this iconic thing that we thought could be reinvented and then [fans] certainly — the loudness of the internet was like, ‘We do not want you to touch this.’ And then we made a movie that I think is fun and I think had its problems but was a fun movie, and then people were just very, very against it. That’s people’s right, but I learned my lesson in a lot of different ways.”

To give credit where it's due, I think Harbour pretty much hit the nail on the head with his above observations about the HELLBOY reboot. When looking at the numbers, you'll find that Marshall's HELLBOY only banked a global return of $44 million against the film's $50 million dollar budget. $21 million of that worldwide gross hails from domestic sales, which is quite telling when determining the film's ability to please fans of creator Mike Mignola's classic character.

Not long after the film's April, 2019 launch, and box office returns were far from what those involved with the project had hoped for, Harbour stated that the reboot was "unfairly bludgeoned" due to moviegoers comparing every major release to Marvel movies. And while an argument can certainly be made to back up Harbour's claim, it's rather bold to point the finger when even die hard fans of the character failed to show an interest in Marshall's version.

While it's unlikely that we'll be seeing Hellboy on the big screen again any time soon, Harbour is poised to make his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut as the Red Guardian for Cate Shortland's BLACK WIDOW. The MCU solo feature centering on Scarlett Johansson's Natasha Romanoff was supposed to superhero-land in theaters on May 1, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has since been moved to a later date.

What are you thoughts about Neil Marshall's HELLBOY? Did you think it deserves more credit than it gets? Sound off in the comments section below.