Hellboy 3: We Need To See Other People...

Sometimes fidelity can be a moving target. It was just mid-February when an initially optimistic Guillermo del Toro took one last shot at resurrecting the Hellboy franchise, bringing the saga to a close with a trilogy-ender fans had long been clamoring for. But she gave back the ring. "Sorry to report," del Toro Tweeted, "Spoke w all parties. Must report that 100% the sequel will not happen. And that is to be the final thing about it."

Well, G, she's getting married, she's just not marrying you.

Word has come from none other than Hellboy creator Mike Mignola that Big Red will be getting a reboot, and that Hellboy 3 is happening, but with director Neil Marshall (The Descent, Game of Thrones) at the helm, and Stranger Things' David Harbour replacing Ron Perlman, in an R-rated chapter titled Hellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen, with script by Andrew Cosby, Christopher Golden and Mignola, with Aron Coleite polishing the script for Marshall.

This is crazy, mixed emotion time news. Del Toro is the genius master of monsters and really gave Hellboy his soul. His two outings with Ron Perlman have a rabid cult following, and Perlman - hell, Perlman is Hellboy. But at the end of the day, Mike Mignola is Hellboy's creator - his daddy. And he has a big influence.

We may never fully know what happened, but word has it that the third film's cost was the deal-breaker, with del Toro insisting on a larger budget to depict his epic vision. Producers opted to reboot instead.

I really feel for Guillermo. He gets passed over a lot, having missed out on The Hobbit and the Pacific Rim sequel and still unable to mount his dream project, At the Mountains of Madness. But he's a complete visionary and one of the most talented filmmakers there is. He's the ringmaster of a cinematic bestiary and I hope that when The Shape of Water opens in November, it receives such acclaim that he gets an Oscar nomination.

Don't get me wrong - with franchises and properties, sometimes it's an open marriage, and sometimes you just move on. I'll see anything with Neil Marshall's name on it and I'm excited to see what he and David Harbour come up with. I'm just excited we're actually getting a new Hellboy and sometimes a fresh perspective does wonders.

But my heart goes out to Perlman and del Toro. They gave their all to this brimstone bad-ass, and I'm guessing they're feeling more than a little betrayed right about now. Here's wishing everyone involved fantastic and rewarding work from here to the horizon. It's not you, it's me.