JB, what are your feelings toward this movie? Do you plan on seeing it in theatres? on DVD? never?
and on a totaly unrelated note, when you contemplate minor home renovations (i.e. paint a room) do you do it or do you hire someone? (let's see, my girlfriend is making me paint her livingroom/dinning room/sun room - where did this question come from?)
To answer your questions in the revers order of how you asked them. "home renovations" to me means "writing checks". I rarely do the work myself.
As to "Hellboy", I commented just last night to a neighbor that I am started to get the feeling "Hellboy" may suffer from what might be called "Howard the Duck Syndrome". The ads I have seen suggest it will be too faithful to the comic, and civilians who are enticed into the theaters might find themselves lost.
Mostly, I am intrigued to see how it fares against the negative impact on such genre films brought by "LXG" and "Underworld", and what I suspect will be the negative impact of "Van Helsing".
(Note: I thought "Underworld" was pretty good -- but the straights evidently disagreed.)
I thought Underworld was very good, too. Something tells me that the average civilian who's not quite up on vampire lore might not have taken any interest in it. As for Hellboy, I'm hoping that it achieves some greater respectability than HTD! We'll see when the movie comes out.
Yes, but the quality of most popcorn flicks has decreased so much over the past 10-15 years that almost anything that resembles having a plot can be quite popular.
I admit I think it will do Blade numbers at best. Hopefully that will be good enough. I myself am dying to see it though.
I'm gonna see it, just because I want to reward a movie that (from what the trailers tell me) looks to be completely faithful! Unfortunately, it also is telling me that it will be nothing more than an expensive two hour video game, that I won't even be able to play.
But, hey...I bitch so much when Hollywood gets it wrong, I may as well put my money where my mouth is.
I was never a huge fan of Hellboy. I haven't bought any of the more recent stuff. The last book I bought was "The Wolves of St. August" I believe. My wife will see it, though, and she's a total straight. I'll let you guys know what she thinks of it.
My roommate was confused as to whom the "Hellboy" was. She saw a demon, and figured he was the bad guy, and thought there might a boy who charged into (or out of) hell to fight him.
Yes, I think the straights might be confused.
Looks pretty good, tho! I hope Mignola makes a few bucks off the whole thing.
I haven't seen a trailer for the film, but I really don't like the billboard advertising I've seen around LA. Looks waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much like X-MEN, with a silver circle background, leather and similar poses of the main characters. Knowing next to nothing about the character, I'm still intrigued but am skeptical as to how much it will be accepted by the regular movie going public.
I think the trailor is PERFECT!! http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/hellboy/index_trailer1.html
The bad thing is that it comes out the same day as Walking Tall, Home on the Range and (Ithink) scooby doo 2!
It might be hard for it to find an audience in that big line up.
I think I am off work so I will probably go and watch both it and maybe walking tall.
Dwayne Ferguson http://www.whatashock.com "There is no wisdom or virtue in seeking unnecessary martydom or deliberately courting persecution..."
C.S. Lewis
I can't wait for this movie! Got tickets to this Friday's L.A. showing with Del Toro and Mignola. It looks more faithful to its source than any comic adaptation I've seen in a long time. Since that means nothing to the general audience, my expectations aren't very high for its box office take. I hope I'm wrong. At any rate, I think it looks fantastic.
I have to admit that I've never read anything with Hellboy in it at all, so I know nothing at all about the character, concept...nada. I wish the movie the best of success, but there's nothing in the trailer that even remotely intrigues me.
I have never been a Hellboy fan. Never even gave it a second thought. But I do like Ron Pearlman as an actor, and after seeing the trailer, I am really wanting to see the movie itself. And if this does stay true to the comic, and the movie turns out to be as good as it looks, then I may just have to pich up some Hellboy issues and trades.
<<t is --- if you already know who Hellboy is. Watch the trailer with that part of your brain turned off, and you will see the source of my concern.
As Brendan noted, there is nothing there to indicate the big red MAN is HellBOY.
>>
There is a trailer that explains who Hellboy is, but they aren't airing it on TV or at the movies. I've only seen it on a preview DVD givaway from Best Buy.
When I saw it, I said to myself, now why aren't they airing the coolest trailer they have?
Some of the more recent traliers seem to be addressing this concern, directly!
"Its Hellboy!" and "Everytime he appears, the newspapers go nuts." etc.
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I don't think that's a recent trailer. It was in the first one I saw. And what it does not do is tell us that Hellboy is the hero of the piece.
I think a basic problem here is that HELLBOY is a comic that about 3 people read. It should be otherwise, but it is not. Which means, unless Mignola has the Best Agent in the World, this movie is getting made by fans . Which is exactly how "Howard the Duck" got made. George Lucas was a fan of the comic, and he wanted to make a movie, so he did. "Howard" stank on ice, in large part because it was too faithful, assuming an audience that already knew and liked the character. My reading on the "Hellboy" trailers gives the same vibe.
And the biggest mistake any filmmaker can make is assuming his audience is walking into the theater pre-sold, ready to enjoy whatever flickers up onto the screen.
Well, if it's well made (acting, special effects, etc.), tells an interesting story, and is basically entertaining, it doesn't need a pre-sold audience. It will be like any other "new" story for those that aren't familiar with it. If it's good, it won't matter that no one reads Hellboy, right?
This message has been edited by Dave_Pruitt on Mar 23, 2004 8:12 PM
