Hellboy: The Crooked Man

Hellboy: The Crooked Man is an upcoming American superhero horror film, based on the Dark Horse Comics character Hellboy created by Mike Mignola. Produced by Millennium Media, Dark Horse Entertainment, Nu Boyana Film Studios, and Campbell Grobman Films, and distributed by Ketchup Entertainment, it is the second reboot of the Hellboy film series and is the fourth live-action entry in the franchise. It is directed by Brian Taylor, from a screenplay he wrote with Mignola and Christopher Golden specifically deriving from The Crooked Man limited series written by Mignola. It stars Jack Kesy as Hellboy, alongside Jefferson White and Adeline Rudolph. Filming began in March 2023, in Bulgaria, and wrapped in May.

Premise
"'In the 1950s, Hellboy and a rookie BPRD agent, stranded in rural Appalachia, discover a small community haunted by witches, led by a local devil with a troubling connection to Hellboy's past: The Crooked Man.'"

Cast

 * Jack Kesy as Hellboy / Anung Un Rama: A powerful yet gentle-natured and heroic demon who works for the government organization Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (B.P.R.D.)., frequently dispatched to handle missions or assignments involving paranormal entities and phenomenon.
 * Martin Bassindale as Jeremiah Witkins, the titular villainous Crooked Man. / Professor Trevor "Broom" Bruttenholm, founder and head of the B.P.R.D. and Hellboy's adoptive father, who is reported to appear in a minor supporting role.
 * Jefferson White as Tom Ferrell
 * Adeline Rudolph as Bobbie Jo Song
 * Joseph Marcell as Reverend Nathaniel Armstrong Watts
 * Leah McNamara as Effie Kolb
 * Hannah Margetson as Cora Fisher

Development
In February 2023, Millennium Media announced plans for a new live-action reboot titled Hellboy: The Crooked Man, the first in a potential series of films. Production is scheduled to begin in April 2023 in Bulgaria with Brian Taylor directing from a script by comics creator Mike Mignola and frequent collaborator Christopher Golden, based on the 2008 comic miniseries of the same name. The film is to be co-produced between Nu Boyana Film Studios and Campbell Grobman Films and is presented by Millennium Media in association with Dark Horse Entertainment.

Taylor expressed his intentions to "reset" the film series and depict a younger and wandering version of Hellboy with a folk horror influence similar to the comics; Taylor also confirmed that the film would be R-rated in order to embrace the "dark and scary and violent and adult" elements of the comics. The following month, Jack Kesy was announced to portray Hellboy, and Jefferson White and Adeline Rudolph were cast as Tom Ferrell and Bobbie Jo Song. In September, Ketchup Entertainment announced that it would distribute the film, as well as Joseph Marcell, Leah McNamara, Hannah Margetson, and Martin Bassindale were cast in undisclosed roles.

Filming
Principal photography began in March 2023, in Bulgaria, and wrapped on May 15.

Post-production
In February 2024, Millennium Media president Jonathan Yunger stated that, after a practical special effect for a film's demon character proved disappointing, he used generative artificial intelligence to make numerous replacement creature designs, which were passed on to visual effects. A Motion Picture Association article reported that this occurred on the film Hellboy: The Crooked Man; however, in May 2024, the film's director Brian Taylor said that Yunger had been misquoted, and had been referring to the earlier film The Offering.

Taylor said that for Hellboy: The Crooked Man, no AI tools were used in pre-production or elsewhere, and that the characters of both Hellboy and the Crooked Man were created and shot practically, with no CGI enhancements.