Hellsing remains one of the darkest, most violent anime franchises to have ever been unearthed in the medium’s history, with fans of Alucard and his fellow vampires astonished to see that the property would be receiving its own live-action film in the West thanks to writer Derek Kolstad. Recently, our very own Adam Barnhardt had the opportunity to ask the writer about the upcoming film and gain a better understanding of Kolstad’s knowledge of the Hellsing organization and its secret weapon that has become one of the most beloved vampires in anime’s history.
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Kolstad has this to say about Alucard and how the movie will approach the king of the vampires that has found himself on the side of humanity in a fight against the Nazi Regime that has come to exact revenge following World War 2 while also attempting to create a new “Reich”:
“Alucard is such an interesting character that you can reinvent, much like the original creators did. And yet, when you think of the world having changed since the publishing of the manga and the production of the anime, it’s pretty easy to take that character and go like, “Here he is in the postmodern world and he’s just as fucking cool.”
Kolstad is definitely no stranger to writing some action-packed worlds, having written the John Wick trilogy and upcoming episodes of Disney+’s Falcon And The Winter Soldier, and he took the opportunity to explore the larger world of Hellsing and what makes the anime’s world so appealing:
“But then, what’s more intriguing is looking at the secondary and tertiary characters and building it on in such a way that when you get to the third one, much like Bond has Q, you want to follow that guy for a bit. Because through his eyes, that perspective shift, you get to see a larger world, still. My favorite World War II movies are always intimate. I love Saving Private Ryan but one of my favorite movies is Hell Is For Heroes and that whole movie is about taking out a pillbox. You get that little sliver of life and it alludes to a much larger one. Dude, you can’t Avengers Endgame game without the first Iron Man and you have to earn your way up to it.”
Are you hyped for the arrival of the live-action movie that translates Hellsing for a new generation? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the world of anime vampires.
