If you happened to wander into a cinema earlier this year and found yourself inexplicably watching the god-awful 'Hellboy' reboot, you'll know from within 20-odd minutes that there were major problems with it.
The most obvious one is, of course, that it was utterly unnecessary and was never going to live up to Guillermo del Toro's versions. For David Harbour, who actually played the Big Red One, the problems came not from its total irrelevance, but from comparisons to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. How's that? We'll let him explain during a recent interview with Digital Spy.
"The problem that I have with comic book movies nowadays is that I think, and it's a result of the power of Marvel stuff, it's like chocolate, it's a flavour. So everybody goes chocolate is delicious and these guys make the best chocolate. So as you judge the movies, it's like, 'Well it's not as chocolatey as this, this does not taste like chocolate at all'. And I sort of want a world where there's more flavours than just comparisons to chocolate. So in that way when 'Hellboy' is viewed on the chocolate spectrum, it does very poorly. That being said, it also has major problems."
To be fair, there's precious few actors out there, much less those leading the actual movie, who'd been that open to admitting culpability. That aside, it can't be denied that 'Hellboy' was god-awful - but was anyone really comparing it to the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
If anything, the promotional and marketing material for the movie seemed to set itself completely apart from anything remotely resembling it. When you look at the likes of, say, 'Deadpool' - which openly embraced how different it was - you can tell that being different can work.
At any rate, 'Hellboy' was a critical and commercial flop so don't be expecting a sequel - or another reboot - any time soon.
