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BY DAVID SERVER |
Hey guys! This is David 'Typhon24' Server reporting
from the Prague set of Hellboy! While taking a break during his directing
duties on a fight scene between Hellboy (Ron Perlman) and the evil
demonic Sammael (Brian Steele), director Guillermo del Toro took
a few minutes to answer some questions accumulated by the fans from
CountingDown.com regarding plans for Hellboy's post-production
schedule, merchandising tie-ins, and possible future entries into
the forthcoming
comic book film series...
CD: How is production coming?
GdT: We're still on time, we're still on budget.
CD: Doug Jones, who plays Abe Sapien in the film, just wrapped
shooting the other day a lot of the fans on the site are big
Abe fans...How did all his footage turn out? As you had been hoping?
GdT: Yeah! The prosthetics, everything...especially the gills. [Guillermo
later screened for me a clip of Abe swimming underwater, beautifully
fluttering gills and all it's a real sight to see! Look
for more specifics in the forthcoming CountingDown Hellboy set reports...]
CD: Will the chest design on Hellboy's body (which was
incorporated in designer Wayne Barlowe's original Hellboy painting)
still be featured in the film version of Hellboy?
GdT: He has marks on his shoulders and his back, but barely any on his
front, because the front design we tried, and it didn't look good;
it looked like a trick to hide the seams or something.
CD: How is the chemistry between Liz (Selma Blair) and Hellboy
(Ron Perlman)? I know some fans are concerned because that relationship,
and the love triangle with them and new character Agent Meyers (Rupert
Evans), doesn't exist in the comics...
GdT: Yes, I think that the love triangle in the movie is working very
well. [Selma] has great chemistry with Ron. Also, Ron and Meyers and
her have a very nice triangle going on. Not a really serious melodramatic
triangle, but it's nicely hinted at.
CD: You've said that after Blade II, you are finished
with martial-arts acrobatic fighting for a while. So how are you approaching
Kroenen's (one of the blade-weilding nazi villains) use of knives
in combat?
GdT: Kroenen's use of knives is less [acrobatic], it's whatever
he can physically do without wires that looks balletic and deadly and
fast, and we actually are incorporating almost dance moves...I came
up with a new weapon for him that, as far as my knowledge is concerned,
I invented...a very cool set of knives, and we're making it
look really efficient...Kinda like a human blender. And the [actor]
is not a martial artist. His first fight, which takes place in the 1940s,
has a little martial arts, but it's not wires. It's very,
very solid, hard-hitting. It's not a traditional wire-fu fight,
and even then weapon he's using, which are two retractable blades,
which are about broadsword size, I think that it's very different.
I think that all the acrobatics and all the wire fighting is better left
for other stuff. Hellboy and [his demonic opponent] Sammael are both
heavy creatures, so what they do is they pummel each other and their
surroundings, but they don't jump around.
CD: Speaking of Sammael, any idea when his design will go public?
GdT: I think he should just go public in the movie. It was nice, and
I don't think anyone complained about it, when we kept the Reapers
from Blade II under wraps. And it's very nice to see them in the
movie, when you see that make-up, you go 'Oh, so they look like
Nosferatu', and then that mouth opens, and you're completely
taken by surprise! I miss that kind of stuff! Why do we have to sell
our good ahead of time every time?
CD: Will composer Marco Beltrami be doing the music for 'Hellboy'?
GdT: Oh, he's doing it. He's coming next week [to start
on the music].
CD: Do you have anything specific in mind for him?
GdT: We will go for a very epic score. There will be a couple of central
themes that will be a little odd sounding, but in general, it will be
a very big very epic score.
CD: How will it compare or differ from the score he did for
Blade II?
GdT: I think it's completely different. Blade II had a techno
base, and then on top of that there was percussion base and very little
melodics. This will combine both.
CD: Any idea of when we'll see the next posters or the
first trailer?
GdT: The first theatrical teaser is gonna be [at the San Diego Comicon
in July]. We're gonna print two posters, Good vs. Evil [Ed. Note:
I've seen the 'Good' poster design you're
gonna want a copy, trust me!], one with the good guys and one with the
bad guys, and each of those posters are gonna run limited edition, never
to be reprinted again, of 1002 posters for each (2004 posters total),
and they'll only be available at the booth in San Diego the first
day. We release Memorial Day, 2004. And that's about it. We are
going to be ready with the movie and doing screenings by February. So
there will be some sneaks starting February and March.
CD: Will you guys be doing any kind of video game to tie into
the movie?
GdT: Well, we've been talking to the studio about not just doing
a quick video-game tie-in that comes out with the movie and then is a
piece of crap, but we're trying to find the best company to do
the best game, even if it comes out a year after the movie.
CD: So you are planning to do one?
GdT: Yeah, oh yeah.
CD: If that were to happen, would you strive to get as much
of the cast involved as possible in terms of voice talent?
GdT: Oh yeah, as well as sound effects and character designs. But we
are really hoping that we don't have to rush it, because we don't
want to rush it for the movie.
CD: Any word on whether you guys are doing any action figure
lines to tie into the movie?
GdT: Well, so far we've talked to Sideshow Toys, and they're
going to do a couple of 12" collectables and a few reproductions...
CD: Any specific reproductions you have planned?
GdT: Well, a big 'Samaritan' [Ed. Note: Hellboy's
gun], and I'm hoping they do a polystone reproduction of [Hellboy's
stone Right Hand of Doom]. But basically the Sideshow stuff is going
to be very low quantity, very exclusive, and for the broader stuff, we
are talking with different manufacturers, but we won't know anything
until a couple of weeks till now.
CD: Will you be releasing a book with the pre-production art
after the movie is released? There are some seriously talented designers
that worked on this movie...
GdT: Yes, definitely. It will have character biographies, with art by
Rick Geary. And it will have a pull-away section, that will include the
diary that I have kept for Hellboy over five years, with all my sketches.
All the storyboards will also be on the DVD...both the DVD and the 'Art
of Hellboy' book will be very, very cool, and very nice. But what
we're going to do which is neat is that 'The Art of Hellboy' will
contain no photos, but it's going to have as exhaustive a collection
of images and drawings as we can get.
CD: Are you thinking about the possibility of a sequel at all?
GdT: I would love to do a sequel. I would love to do every Hellboy movie
until Ron turns 70. I think that there are so many good stories...What
I would like is to have [series creator] Mike Mignola and I come up with
a story that incorporates some stuff of the comic, but is actually mostly
original. I would like to take a little of 'Almost Colossus' and
a lot of 'Conqueror Worm' and then go at it.
CD: Any chance we'd see the Kriegaffe, the robot-gorilla
hybrid monsters of mad Nazi scientist/floating-head-in-a-jar Herman
Von Klempt?
GdT: Ah, yea! I do not think [the Kriegaffe] were a good idea for the
first [movie], this movie has enough weird stuff as it is. But they will
be there in the second one, for sure. Except the floating head on the
second one will *not* be Von Klempt...you'll have to wait and
see who floats!
CD: Haha, ok sounds good! Are you currently brainstorming about
any more immediate future projects that you have on the horizon?
GdT: Before coming to Prague, I turned in my 17 page scriptment of 'Wind
in the Willows', and a 50 page treatment of 'At the Mountains
of Madness'. My writing partner Matthew Robbins finished a pass
several weeks ago, and I made my comments and my changes on the weekend,
and the screenplay has been turned into the studio, we'll see what
happens. On' Wind in the Willows' now, we're on pages.
Every Sunday night, I send in my copies.
After that, the next shot needed setting up, so Guillermo returned
to his directing duties and the filming continued. I'm still
in Prague on set as you read this, so look for my series of set reports
and some more info from the folks behind next summer's 'Hellboy' in
the coming days!
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