BY DAVID SERVER | Guillermo del Toro is one of the coolest men alive. Im sorry, but its true. What leads me to this conclusion? Well, Ive just recently returned from a guided tour of the preproduction facilities for Hellboy, and while the bulk of the artwork has already been shipped to Prague in preparation for Marchs commencement of principal photography, I was floored. This movie is going to be like nothing you have seen visually before.

When we first arrived at the Hellboy offices (myself, Rob Worley from Comics2Film, and two friends of his), Guillermo gave us all a warm welcome. He took us inside the nondescript office building which houses the remaining preproduction art and introduced us to the team who was still working the offices in LA (the entire production will move out to Prague at the beginning of December). The walls were covered in some amazing concept art for some of the unique and awesome visuals we will be seeing on the big screen come Summer 2004.

First and foremost, though we were limited in what we could see of the near final Hellboy make-up tests on Ron Perlman, what we saw reaffirmed my faith that Rick Baker and del Toro have hit on a near perfect live-action visualization of the character in Mike Mignolas comic. Imagine the Comicon Hellboy teaser poster as a photo, and there you have it. Also, the chest tattoos in Wayne Barlowes painting have been fleshed out somewhat, and look fantastic. Final make-up tests for HB are going on this week, and fans can expect to see something official of Perlman as Hellboy (and more) come early next year.

Moving on to more art, we caught a glimpse at the church where Hellboy is summoned at the start of the film. Suffice to say, its very very Mignola, demonic carvings and all. We also caught a glimpse at the inside of the BPRD, which is huge in scope. Very metallic and gaping in an epic sort of way, and it should look great on film. Sammael, the beastie seen fighting Hellboy in Wayne Barlowes painting, looks great. He may be the creature effects star of this piece, and I think hes the villain Im most excited for after having seen what I have seen. His head looks the same as in the Barlowe painting, but the rest of the design has evolved a great deal since then. Guillermo seems to have poured all his guilty pleasure dreams of gore and horror into one dangerous and angry creature, and this guys it. Im not at liberty to divulge any details, but suffice to say, he will be a runaway fan favorite when he hits the screen.

We also got a peek at the final creature Hellboy battles with during the films climax. Again, I dont want to ruin anything, but H.P. Lovecraft fans will blow their tops. We also caught some early designs for Kroenen (who should make a Darth Maul-esque impression as killer-bad-guy-who-just-wont-quit). And then we come to my personal favorite, Abe Sapien. Abe is very much the Abe we know and love from the comics. His movie persona does seem to have incorporated a good deal more fish based deign attributes, and he looks damn gorgeous. I cant wait to see this accomplished live action. Needless to say, when they finally release an Art of Hellboy the Movie book, it will be worth however much they charge for it and then some. Del Toro has hired some of the best creative minds in the business for the work theyre doing, and it shows.

Next, we drove to Spectral Motion Inc to check out some of the creature work going on. On the drive up, I got to talk casting with Guillermo. First and foremost, del Toro did confirm that the casting posted on Aint It Cool News recently was legit. This confirms that Selma Blair will be playing the pyrokinetic Liz Sherman, John Hurt will be playing Hellboys father Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, Larry Miller will be playing Dr. Tom Manning of the BPRD, Karel Roden will be playing the infamous mad monk Rasputin, and actor/mime/dancer Doug Jones will play Hellboys amphibious partner, Abe Sapien.

In regard to the initial surprise of casting Blair as Liz, Guillermo was adamant that she was his first (and only) choice for the role. For those of you whose only exposure to Blair is through Legally Blonde or Cruel Intentions, Guillermo recommends you check out Storytelling. He says that hes very excited about working with Blair, and while some people had their hopes up for Mira Sorvino, Guillermo was really looking to cast a younger actress in this role (although he did admit that Sorvino bears more than a passing resemblance to the way Mignola draws Liz). As for John Hurt, Guillermo said that he convinced Hurt to join the cast by showing him the script and convincing him that though this is a genre feature (and Hurts first at that), the story is driven by emotions and characters. Larry Miller was a pretty easy casting decision because, as we all agreed, he looks exactly like Manning in the comic book. Karel Roden, who convinced del Toro that he was the right man for the job as the villain in 15 Minutes, is able to bring Rasputin to life without any baggage as an actor that someone like Gary Oldman may have had. Guillermo pointed out that while his original choice was Jean Reno, he feels that in America, people dont find Reno scary, but funny. Roden, who also played Damaskinos lawyer Carter Kounen in Blade 2, is in a unique position to be a new face who can really frighten audiences.

When asked whether Doug Jones would be providing the voice as well as the body for Sapien, Guillermo replied that he wants to give Jones a chance and see if his voice feels right, but if not, his first ideal choice for Abes vocals would still be Kevin Spacey. There are two large parts still left uncast  Ilsa, Rasputins righthand woman, and Agent Meyers, a newcomer to the BPRD and Hellboys new caretaker. While Ilsa never came up (ok, so technically I forgot to ask), we did talk at length about the casting of Agent Meyers. Being a character that never existed in the comics, theres a bit more room for creativity in casting Meyers. Some early choices included Ryan Phillipe, and actor Tom Superman Welling. Sorry, Welling fans  his Smallville schedule would prevent him from being able to take on the role. So next week will be devoted almost exclusively to casting that part. While its too soon to tell who will land the role, Guillermo did let us in on his current favorite pick  Scott Wolf, of Party of Five fame. Del Toro claims to have never seen the show, however, but was more taken with Wolf in Go.

Guillermo also took some time to give us an update on some of the other projects he has cooking for after Hellboy has hit theaters. First and foremost, after years of negotiations, del Toros adaptation of Domu is officially not going to happen. Sorry to all those of you who were excited by this prospect, but you cant say he didnt try. Additionally, Guillermo says that his involvement with Universals Creature from the Black Lagoon was greatly exaggerated, as Universal wants to go with it sooner than Guillermo has time on his schedule (although he did have a pitch). Sleepless Knights is still a project that interests him, though there isnt much going on with it that he knows about. The Coffin, Mephistos Bridge, and The Wind in the Willows are currently still under active development. And Guillermo expects to hear back from DreamWorks about his At the Mountains of Madness pitch within the month.

For the third and final branch of our tour, we ended up at Spectral Motion, the new creature effects workshop created specifically by Guillermo for Hellboy. We were given the grand tour by Mike Elizalde, head of the shop. At the shop we got to see some three dimensional representations of the new Abe design (by Jose Fernandez) in bust and statue form. Id like to take a moment to appeal to Spectral Motion  you guys *have* to make Abe Sapien movie busts available for sale in 2004, cause those things were beautiful. One of the best parts of new Abe are the gorgeous fish skin patterns that he has been granted. Anyways, back to the shop. After I was done taking in the wonder that is Abe, we got to see some working animatronic tentacles (for the various Cthulu beasties which inhabit the Hellboy universe), a bio-cast worn by one of the films characters after they are wounded in battle, Rasputins nazi-tech Ragnarok Gauntlet, Abe Sapiens breathing apparatus for when hes out of water, and last but not least, The Corpse animatronic (from the fan fave Hellboy short story The Corpse). This thing rules  its very much a Mike Mignola corpse, creepy but ultimately funny. I cant wait to see Hellboy throw that thing over his shoulder as it gives him directions. Should be a great scene straight outta the comics. Last but not least, we moved onto maquettes, which are small clay or plaster renderings of characters in three dimensions as they should appear in the final film. We saw Abe again (couldnt get enough of him), Sammael (who continued to look amazing), a fetal Sammael (for you GdT fans out there who were wondering how Guillermo would get his trademark love of fetuses into Hellboy, theres your answer), baby Hellboy (who is absolutely adorable, dragging his famed Left Hand behind him), and the epic Ogdru-Jahad.

That concluded our tour, so the four of us went back to the production offices and grabbed coffee to talk a bit on comic book movies, the struggle to get Hellboy made the right way and more before he had to get back to work. It really was a pleasure to see someone so happy with the work theyre doing, and that will no doubt come through in the final film. We then said our goodbyes, as Guillermo returned to the offices and we went on our respective ways. Guillermo was great and enthusiastic throughout, a charismatic, entertaining, and utterly friendly fan through and through. And he KNOWS what hes doing. All in all, I was both reassured and surprised by the scope of what I saw. Hellboy should really end up an epic comic book style adventure, with more sweeping sci-fi sets than one could ever ask for, and more gruesome monsters than any horror fan has ever dreamed of. Guillermo del Toro is one of the coolest men alive  and come Summer 2004, youll get a taste of why.