By Fred Topel | Image property of Universal Pictures
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Hellboy II: The Golden Army may look more like Guillermo del Toro than Mike Mignola. The creator of the comic books is fine with that though.
Mike Mignola Talks Hellboy II: The Golden Army
"I'm pretty happy," said Mignola. "As the reviews come in and as I talk to people who've seen it, it's certainly easier. I was always happy with it, but there's always an element that says, 'Okay, I know it works for me but what are the regular people going to think?' The more I hear people enjoy the film, the more I kind of unclench and relax and go, 'Yeah, yeah, it is great.'"
Mignola retains controlling rights to his property, although in Hollywood that doesn't always mean total control. "Even saying control is slightly misleading because once you've sold your property to Hollywood, you don't really control it. One of the questions people always ask me is how much control do I have. Well, I don't really have any. Once I give up those rights, they can do what they want. Where I'm very fortunate is I have a director who wants me there, a director who wants me involved."
Writer/director Guillermo Del Toro deferred to Mignola when the artist believed he was about to misuse Lobster Johnson if he included him in the film. "It was Guillermo's idea and then when they figured out how much it was going to cost to do the clear plastic head, he tried to actually substitute Johann for another character of mine, which I wouldn't let him do. I just felt for what Johann needed to do in the film, it needed to be Johan."
Mignola would have allowed del Toro to change Johann's appearance, but not his entire character. "I said, 'If you want to lose the clear plastic head and make him a human being who's a medium, that's fine but I don't want you to bring in this other character and change that other character to suit this film.' It would be kind of like saying, 'We want Superman but Batman's cheaper so we'll just put in Batman.' Different guy, different powers. They did solve the Johann problem but I think that was Guillermo's decision to bring Johann in."
Hellboy II: The Golden Army opens to theaters on July 11th.
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