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FRIDAY, JULY 11, 2008

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY -- MIKE MIGNOLA

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- The Continuum continues its series of interviews from the Hellboy II: The Golden Army press junket with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola.

Following is an edited transcription from the roundtable interview.

Question: How proud are you of this incarnation of Hellboy?

Mignola: Iım pretty happy. As the reviews come in and as I talk to people who have seen it, itıs certainly easier. I mean, I was always happy with it, but thereıs always an element that says, "Okay, I know it works for me, but what are the regular people going to think?" And then the more I hear people enjoy the film, the more I kind of unclench and relax and go, "Yeah, yeah, it is great."

Question: Compared to some other comic-book creators, you find yourself in a really good position where you control your property. Does that make it easier when you see your work on the screen?

Mignola: 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 asked 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 am very fortunate is I have a director who wants me there, a director who wants me involved.

Question: How much input did you have on this one?

Mignola: Quite a lot. Guillermo and I actually sat down originally to do an adaptation of one of the existing stories, and after about eight hours we hit a snag and said, "Ah, let's just do fairies instead." He was preparing Pan's Labyrinth and I was preparing a major storyline in the Hellboy comic, both of which involved the kind of fantasy, fairy, elf stuff. I think that's where both our heads were at, so we just abandoned the adaptation we were going to do, and immediately just came up with a brand-new story.

Question: Which story were you going to adapt?

Mignola: It would have been a very loose adaptation of something called Almost Colossus.

Question: Guillermo's creatures in Hellboy II have such a distinct Guillermo del Toro look, especially from Pan's Labyrinth. How do you feel about the way they fit into the Hellboy creatures?

Mignola: Well, again, it was much easier on this film, because everything in the film was original. It wasn't really adapting characters from the comic -- other than the character Johann, who is from the comics. There were a lot of design changes for that character to bring him to the film. But all the other creatures didn't have their origins in the film. In the first film, we had a lot of characters we had to adapt from the comics, but this one it was just brand new. So even though I did early designs for some of these characters, for the most part, all the signature creature designs in the film are very much del Toro creature designs. The most unique ones are very much from del Toro's imagination.

Question: Then there is still Hellboy, Abe...

Mignola: But again, we had already done all those translations on the first film. In a way, as a designer, I had much less to do on this second film. I just tried to stay out of his way.

Question: By introducing a lot of B.P.R.D. characters, is that going to rule out a standalone B.P.R.D. film, or the possibility of a TV series now that Hellboy has quit the B.P.R.D.?

Mignola: When he quit B.P.R.D., it looked like Abe went with him, so you kind of go, "Well, who would the B.P.R.D. TV series be, or B.P.R.D. film?" It's not like the X-Men where we have a billion super-powered characters. Basically we have these two or three creature characters and most of the B.P.R.D. is human. Certainly I think you could do something with the B.P.R.D., especially I think it would be great for TV, because you wouldn't be doing characters for the most part that need a billion hours of makeup. But, again, that's for other people to make those decisions.

Question: Is there a reason you decided to add Johann Krauss to Hellboy II?

Mignola: It was Guillermo's idea, and then when they figured out how much it was going to cost due to the clear, plastic head, he tried to actually substitute Johann for another character of mine, which I wouldn't let him do. Because I just felt, for what Johann needed to do in the film, it needed to be Johann. I said, "You know, if you want to lose the clear, plastic head and just 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'd be kind of like saying, "We want Superman, but Batman's cheaper, so we'll just put in Batman." It's like, 'Different guys, different powers! But, you know, they did solve the Johann problem. But I think that was Guillermo's decision to bring Johann in.

Question: Who was the other character?

Mignola: Lobster Johnson.

Question: But we're going to see Lobster Johnson in the third film if that happens, right?

Mignola: That's right. Among 10,000 other things he] says are going to be in the third film, he swears Lobster Johnson will be in there.

Question: So the third one's going to be five hours long then?

Mignola: If he puts in everything he told me he was going to put in there, five hours at least. I think there'd be a 36-hour cut that'd have to be chopped down to five.

Question: Are you optimistic that there'll be a Hellboy III?

Mignola: I'm never optimistic. I would've sworn that there would never be a Hellboy I, so I've been wrong a couple times. I think the best thing I can do for Hellboy III is to say it will never happen, because that seems to be how things get made. You know, certainly at this point there seems to be a lot of interest in Hellboy III, so I am guardedly optimistic.

Question: We have to ask, because we obviously know he's going to be busy for the next four years with 'The Hobbit. Obviously, Hellboy is your baby, but del Toro has adopted him like one of his own kids. Do we see someone else directing Hellboy III if he's busy for the next 4-6 years?

Mignola: That's certainly going to be a really interesting situation. Because if this movie is successful, I can't imagine the studio saying, "Sure, we'll wait five years." So I don't know what's going to happen there. I can't imagine it without him, but at the same time I can't imagine people sitting around waiting five years.

Question: Ron Perlman has said three this is really a three-picture story. Three movies is what del Toro really wants, that he doesn't want it to go to a fourth film. How do you feel about that? Would you not like it to expand as a long franchise?

Mignola: I think the situation that Guillermo's built in is a very definite arc. It certainly isn't James Bond, it isn't something that's designed to not advance the character. And I think with the Hellboy/Liz Sherman relationship being so central to the story, and now the introduction of children, you kind of go, "Well, this is clearly going someplace." It would be hard to do a third picture that's just more of the same.

I mean, for me personally, I'd be happy to see Hellboy 4, Hellboy 4, but the film version of Hellboy is very much his baby, so if he wants to wrap it up, so be it. The one thing I've got to be really careful about is that, if he does do a third picture and he does do the end of Hellboy, I've got to make damn sure he doesn't make the ending that I'm going to do in the comic, because mine's 15 years away and I don't want him to give away my ending. But it also would be a very strange situation where, you know, he's doing the life and, whatever, death of Hellboy, and I'm still over here doing the comic going, "No, kids, it's not over yet."

Question: Does he know what you have planned?

Mignola: He does say that I told him. I tried not to tell him, but once he and I get talking, I tend to tell him everything I'm thinking. But I think what he would do is very different than what I would do. And certainly there are so many different layers to my Hellboy, and they don't involve family and children and stuff like that, I think it would just be radically different.

Question: How about more animated Hellboy films?

Mignola: Again, that's somebody else's call. Tad Stones ran the animated shows, he and I actually wrote a third Hellboy animated film that we were really excited about, and they just decided not to continue it. And that would have had Lobster Johnson.

Question: If it was your choice, which characters would you like to introduce in the third animated movie?

Mignola: I think Lobster Johnson would be great. That's the one that the fans love, it's a character I think is great. You know, it's hard to say. Considering the kind of story he wants to tell, I think that character would make the most sense to bring in.

Question: What's coming up in the comics in the near future?

Mignola: The comic in the near future, again, without being the same storyline as Hellboy II, it deals with a lot of the same subject matter, with the idea of a kind of revolt or a war that's building between the elves and trolls and all these dispossessed characters that have been kind of living underground. It's a rebel, not a prince, but a kind of rebel character saying, "Hey, let's take the world back."

Question: Have you also dealt with Hellboy's exposure to our world?

Mignola: Because one of the major differences between the comics and the film is that Hellboy's always been a public figure, and one of the things I've always done in the comic is he just shows up and people go, "Oh, hi. How you doing?" They don't even notice that he's red and he has a tail. It just started as something I just thought would be funny. And so I've never dealt with the whole you're a secret kind of a thing.

Question: Frank Miller's directing films. Are we ever going to see Mike Mignola direct?

Mignola: I can almost 100 percent tell you that you'll never see me direct. I love sitting next to Guillermo when he's directing, but within minutes I know that that's a job I never want. Not because it wouldn't be cool, but it's just too big a job and it takes forever. I'm slow at drawing comics, let alone doing something like this that's going to involve all this stuff.

And Guillermo knows everything. He knows a little bit about everything, and he knows a lot about a lot of stuff. And if I wanted to direct, I think I would have had to be thinking about directing since the time I was 10 years old. I mean, I watched him doing post-production, I watched him dealing with Danny Elfman on the music. He can talk music with Danny Elfman, he can talk camera lenses with (director of photography Guillermo) Navarro, and he can tell the special effects guys how to do the special effects. I don't know anything. So I would just be a useless lump sitting there in the chair going, "Is there any way to make this into a picture?" So, no, that's not going to happen.

Question: Can you give us an update on what's going on with the David Goyer project that you guys are working on?

Mignola: David Goyer is attached to the film adaptation of a novel I co-wrote last year called Baltimore or the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire. Chris Golden and I wrote the novel together, and we just turned in the second draft of the screenplay. It's sitting on David's desk, and I know David has a bunch of different films that are all his next film, and hopefully this one gets to the top of the pile. I kind of like to think that, from that studio's perspective, "From the creator of Hellboy and the writer of Batman," that would kind of look pretty good. Again, I never expect things to work out, but I would be very excited to see that film happen.

Question: You've been around Comic-Con for years and years. Are you a little disappointed that it's become this huge Hollywood event now?

Mignola: I would be more disappointed if Hellboy wasn't a film, because it staggers what Hellboy is. But it is sad that the comic-book stuff has become such a Hollywood machine. I miss the old days a little bit. It is very strange to go into the biggest comic-book convention in America and kind of go, "Are there any comics here?" And the guys who created the comics are stuck against the farthest wall, but it's the nature of the beast these days.

And it is good for comics. There are bad things about it, but a few years ago we were all saying, "Jeez, maybe comics are going to go away." Sales had gotten really terrible. If for no other reason, comics will stay around because publishers are going, "Well, maybe we won't make any money on the comic, but, hey, maybe that will be a film."

Question: How is the comic book business doing from your perspective?

Mignola: It's not great. I know my publisher does publish a certain amount of things that don't make any money as a comic, but my publisher is also a movie producer, so they're always looking at things as "Does it have a possible other life?" And I think other publishers are all thinking the same thing. The good thing about that from a comic-book creator perspective is, a publisher looks at your origina material, and they might say, "Yeah, we'll sell 10,000 copies of this, but we might be able to develop it as a film property, so we will publish it." So at least things are getting published that might not otherwise get published.

Question: Do you think the fact that Dark Horse publisher Mike Richardson has produced The Mask and Timecop and all these other things has helped the process of Hellboy along too?

Mignola: It's hard to say it helped the process of Hellboy. You know, it got the film made. I'd like to think I'd still be doing Hellboy even if there wasn't a film, but the truth is, God knows, with my sales figures, if I would be able to pay the rent or the mortgage if it was a just a comic and there'd never been a film.

Question: Can you talk a little bit about working with Mike Richardson and what that's been like?

Mignola: There's a lot of neck strain because he's so damn tall, but other than that, that's kind of the only problem. He's been great. I mean, from day one as my comic-book publisher, a guy who never asked what Hellboy was about, he said, "We want you to do something," I said, "I've got this thing, it's called Hellboy," and said, "Great, we'll give you the same deal we gave Frank Miller." What am I going to complain about? My relationship has been great with Dark Horse.

Question: You mentioned that your Hellboy ending was some 15 years away. Do you have all of the stories of those 15 years well laid out in your head, or do you just have the ending that you're shooting for?

Mignola: I've got the next probably five years of Hellboy pretty figured out. Then there's a chunk of the story that's roughly figured out, and then I know the ending.

Question: Why 15 years?

Mignola: It's been 15 years, and it feels like I'm about halfway through the story. Again, depending on if the artist I've got drawing it is kind of slow, and if I come in at some point and draw it again, I'm really slow. I'd like to think 15 years. I'd also like to think that in 15 years, I'll still be able to do this stuff, and beyond that, God knows. I don't want to be hit by a bus before I finish the ending of the story.

Question: Are there any new things you're starting?

Mignola: I've got a couple of projects that are set in the Hellboy world. I've got a Victorian occult detective I've wanted do for a long time, and I've actually got a couple other things. I've also got some original, non-Hellboy, small odd little short stories I want to do, but, you know, there aren't enough hours in the day.

Question: Does it feel weird having so many other creators producing the actual comics?

Mignola: The toughest decision I ever had to make professionally was finding somebody else to draw Hellboy, but I just knew this gigantic story that I'd made up was never going to get done if I was the artist of it. It was tough, and there are days where it's still tough. But the guy's great, Duncan Fegredo, who draws Hellboy, is fantastic. I've been very lucky with the people I've been able to work with.

Question: Hellboy's still the main priority?

Mignola: For me, Hellboy is. I co-write some of the other books. I wrote an Abe Sapien book last year, and I wrote a Lobster Johnson book last year. I keep trying to put all my energies into something else, but I've created this big pile of interrelated books, and I'm the one guy who knows where those stories are going, so I can't just say, "Hey, Bob, you figure it out." It's my baby.



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