Guillermo Del Toro fought long battles to make "Hellboy," including his insistence that Ron Perlman play the part. Even though the film did well, he’s still fighting for the sequel. Taking the property from Columbia to Universal Pictures, they’re still ironing out all the details.
"Right now, I can tell you that we may argue about budget, and we may argue about size versus cost, but creatively I have been in heaven, so far," said Del Toro. "It was, actually, creatively a great experience on the first one, but I think the difference is, going into it the first time, with a movie called Hellboy, with a guy that looks like he has two plastic cups on his forehead, and people chewing their nails to know what the character is, is a great difference. We’ll see, at the end of the ride. No ride is safe. There is no handlebar on these things. You ride the roller coaster without any protection."
Just in case "Hellboy 2" is the end, Del Toro won’t leave any loose threads. "We always do that. We created the first one and said, ‘If there’s a second one, great. If there’s not a second one, great.’ We go into the second one the same way. It is my hope that we would be allowed to do the trilogy, but you don’t know."
Hoping to begin in May or June, Del Toro will have to get used to coloring in the lines after having total freedom with his indie "Pan’s Labyrinth." "The thing is that you know, to a point, what you’re going to gain and what you’re going to not have. I just know that, if I want to paint these huge comic book panels, I need to go to a studio. I would never attempt to do Hellboy 2 with European funding, and I would never attempt to have Pan’s Labyrinth done with a studio. Imagine them testing that movie."
