By Hellboy is getting absolutely destroyed by critics right now. We’ll have our review up tomorrow so you’ll be able to know what truly right opinion on the film is then, but until then it isn’t looking too hot for the film. Of course, once a movie starts to show signs of cracking the stories of dysfunction begin, and the ones about Hellboy are pretty serious, involving temperamental actors and producers wanting to be directors.
Now, there’s conflict and trouble in every shoot, but The Wrap reports that things became bad when the film’s producers, Lawrence Gordon and Lloyd, who made the last two Hellboy films, replaced director Neil Marshall’s cinematographer in a show of power. This led to a tense shoot in which star David Harbour reportedly walked off the set multiple times, the script was rewritten during production by the cast, Levine coming onto the set and telling the actors how to perform, an extended argument over what a tree should look like. The report also states that Marshall basically had no control of the edit of the film as the producers simply took over. It sounds like a mess that led to a mess of a movie (again, not to be confirmed until our official review).
For his part, Levin’s lawyer denies any of these things happening but considering the fact that he’s speaking through a lawyer there has to be something going on here. Gordon and Levin are well-respected producers and these antics sound out of character for them but The Wrap has multiple sources confirming they happened. The truth might be an attempt to save a bad film going awry, but most likely its somewhere in the middle of the two stories presented. My guess is that people weren’t happy and that means everyone has their own version of what went down.
