'Hellboy' Pulls In $1.38 Million On Opening Night

Hellboy, the David Harbour-starring reboot of the franchise based on Mike Mignola's demonic superhero, earned $1.38 million during Thursday night previews. The movie is expected to earn around $18 million this weekend, coming in second or third behind Shazam! and possibly Missing Link. The film is performing relatively on par with estimates, with an opening nowhere near as robust as Shazam!'s preview night numbers -- but roughly on par with the most recent Resident Evil film, which took home $1 million on Thursday and ended up with around $14 million total for the weekend. Whereas Shazam! opened at over $50 million, the R-rated Hellboy was never expected to make anything close to that.

The review embargo lifted for Hellboy earlier this week, and movie critics have not been kind. With a Rotten Tomatoes score in the single digits, the reviews have been generally negative, with many critics slamming the reboot for a variety of reasons. While it's the third Hellboy feature film, the Neil Marshall-led flick serves as a hard reboot for the classic comic characters which sees Stranger Things star David Harbour stepping into the role vacated by Ron Perlman. Most of the reviews praise Harbour's take on Big Red, with the majority of criticisms coming from other aspects of the production.

Hellboy creator Mike Mignola was heavily involved with the sequel this time around, having input from the earliest stages of the film.

"It's funny, because my involvement has been very different than the Del Toro movies," Mignola said last year. "The difference is I had known Del Toro for six years by the time we did the first movie. Neil I met a couple months before he worked on the movie. It was very different, but I have been involved ever since they said 'Hey we're gonna make another Hellboy movie, and we're gonna do this story.'"

"I've bounced back and forth with them about how to adapt this particular Hellboy story. At various times I've jumped in and been much more active in the screenplay than I ever was on the Del Toro movies," the writer continued. "But I did nothing so far as design stuff on the movie. Guillermo wanted me as a concept artist, but on this movie, there were other concept artists. I came in and I looked at some stuff, but they were trying to do something so close to what's on the comics that they really leaned on what had been done by Duncan [Fegredo] and me in the comics."

Hellboy stars David harbour, Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane, Sasha Lane, Daniel Dae Kim, Douglas Tait, and Sophie Okonedo amongst others. The Descent helmer Neil Marshall directs off a script from Andrew Cosby.

Will you be catching Hellboy when it hits theaters this weekend? Let us know in the comments below or join the conversation on Twitter by hitting me up at @RussBurlingame to chat all things Hellboy!

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