Few things are more relentless in this life than the look of a fan scrutinizing an adaptation of your favorite comic or video game or a remake of one of your favorite series or movies, and david harborprotagonist of the unfairly beaten ‘Hellboy’ directed by Neil Marshall, knows quite a bit about this.
The IP problem
In an interview with GQ on the occasion of the premiere of ‘Silent Night’, the actor shared what he says is the great lesson he learned from his experience translating Mike Mignola’s comic to the big screen; a commercial hit that failed to recover its $50 million production at the international box office.
“[Con ‘Hellboy’] I learned not to fuck with consolidated licenses, that’s clear. Don’t fuck with a dear, established license. That’s the big lesson learned.”
Harbor expanded his answer comparing original works and approaches to already existing intellectual properties.
“Regardless of the failures or successes of the film, which there were many, the film has something about it that makes it almost impossible. Things like ‘Stranger Things’ or ‘Silent Night’ are something original that people can judge when they come out. , when they see it. They don’t have to dig into as much material. To me, that’s what makes existing IP so complicated.
The good thing about ‘Stranger Things’ is that we got to do ‘Indiana Jones,’ but we didn’t call it ‘Indiana Jones,’ we called it ‘Stranger Things,’ so you don’t have people mad about calling it ‘Indiana Jones,’ you just call it. Come and enjoy it.”
In 2020, the interpreter already commented on his dire feelings about the film, and theorized about a key element in its failure.
“I think it fell through before we even started shooting because I think people didn’t want us to do it. Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman created something iconic that we thought we could reinvent, and then the internet noise was like, ‘We don’t want to that you touch this'”.
For David Harbour, ‘Hellboy’ “It was a very difficult experience because I expected a lot from her”. As they say, you learn from everything.