Why Hellboy Failed

4. Rewrites And An Aimless Script

Next up is something which happens on a whole bunch of movies - although some deal with it better than others. Again, according to The Wrap, the script was undergoing significant rewrites while production was in full swing. The details are admittedly a little iffy on this one, as the website's sources indicate that pretty much everyone was contributing to the screenplay, including stars David Harbour and Ian McShane, while Martin Singer - Lloyd Levin’s attorney - provided a response downplaying the revisions, claiming that only a few scenes were altered and the actors didn’t touch the script.

Either way, the screenplay ended up being baffling inconsistent, lacking clarity, and making it confusing to know what characters actually know at any given moment about the plot. So much is crammed into this film that it at once feels far too bloated yet far too simple.

The endgame of Milla Jovovich's villain is just… be evil, while Hellboy himself kind of has an arc, with him wondering whether or not humans should be killing monsters, but it comes out of nowhere and the conflict lasts for about 5 minutes of screentime.

That’s kind of a problem with the script in general; there doesn’t seem to be any long-term plan, just isolated scenes that don’t sustain drama for more than five minutes. Factions are introduced and killed off before you get a chance to know or care about them, while moments of peril are solved within seconds.

This problem could be down to how the filmmakers handled the source material. So many volumes of the comics are squashed into this story, and while it pays lip service to them all, none get the focus they deserve.