To say that the recent Hellboy reboot film was a failure would be a bit of an understatement. The Neil Marshall-directed reboot that saw David Harbour in the titular role earned just over $21 million at the box office on a reported budget of $50 million. It didn’t even make half of its money back, which is disappointing considering the talent involved and the deep love for the character of Hellboy. It’s also extremely frustrating to know what we’ll never get the rebooted version of Abe Sapien that was teased in Hellboy‘s final scene.
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At the end of Hellboy, the BPRD raided a lab and discovered a container with Abe Sapien inside. Just the hand of the character was shown against the glass, but it was more than enough to confirm Abe’s identity. Makeup artist Joel Harlow, who worked on the Hellboy reboot, recently spoke with ComicBookMovie and revealed that, not only was Abe set to be a part of the sequel, but that he would have a completely different design.
“The unfortunate thing is that the movie did not do very well and if it had, we would have explored Abe Sapien again,” said Harlow. “There were actually a lot of creatures coming in potential sequels. For this one, we get a glimpse at him at the very end with that teaser with his hand but if we had done the entire character, first of all, it would be vastly different from the other films, more thug like, and we wouldn’t have even have gone with that hand you see at the end of the film. We would have designed something from scratch. That’s one of the ones that, because I have an affection for fish people and fish characters, would have been really fun to work on but alas, no.”
The idea of redesigning Abe shouldn’t be surprising when you consider that just about everything in the Hellboy reboot featured characters and creatures that looked nothing like the versions from Guillermo del Toro’s first two films.
Alas, we’ll never get to know what the new Abe Sapien would’ve looked like, as there’s no chance in hell this reboot gets a second chance, disappointing as that may be.
What did you think of the new Hellboy? Were you hoping to see the new take on Abe Sapien? Let us know in the comments!
