Hellboy reboot: Neil Marshall assures that a certain actor was ruining the set

The director doesn’t say his name, but everyone will understand that he doesn’t have David Harbor in his heart…

Failed proofreading of Hellboythe film by Neil Marshall (the excellent The Descent) has obviously inherited a series of problems which were not the fault of its director. In an interview given to our colleagues atWidescreen during the Gérardmer Festival, the filmmaker says he was hired “ to do a certain job, which was to deliver a horror version of Hellboy, and after I agreed, they ultimately didn’t let me do that job. I wasn’t allowed to touch the script and I felt like I had to make a film with my hands and knees tied. »

He explains that the atmosphere was tense, with two producers who could not see themselves in painting and “ were constantly trying to put each other down. One had the rights, the other had the money, they were forced to work together against their will and I found myself in the middle of the battlefield. » Not easy for Marshall who even believes that this Hellboy is not “ (his) baby “.

The director also sings the praises of Milla Jovovich who “ made the experience tolerable » by his presence, but spits on “a certain actor” whom he prefers not to name but with whom he “ encountered some difficulties (…) When he arrived on set, the morale of the team was automatically lowered. On the other hand, when it was Milla who arrived, everyone smiled again. » It’s not difficult to understand that Neil Marshall is talking here about David Harbour, the main role of the film, whose reputation has been greatly tarnished in recent months…

And if the film had to be reshot, Marshall would first want ” changing the storyline, which has always been the main problem. One of its faults was wanting to stick too closely to the original material, material which works very well in comic form, but which presents too many inconsistencies to make a good film script. I tried to fix it, but they wouldn’t let me. Furthermore, I would also like to make the whole thing darker, not murky, but simply darker, a bit like the original version of The Crow (…) I would have liked to give Hellboy her Batman Begins. »

The rest of this interesting interview can be read on the Écran Large website.