The Motion Picture Association has officially revealed its film rating for Ketchup Entertainment and Millenium Media’s Hellboy: The Crooked Man.
The forthcoming Hellboy reboot has been rated R by the MPA for “some violent content, language, and nudity.” This marks the second Hellboy movie to earn an R rating after the David Harbour-led Hellboy, which was released in 2019. The two Ron Perlman-starring Hellboy movies, directed by Guillermo del Toro and released in the 2000s, were both rated PG-13.
Hellboy: The Crooked Man was made with an R rating in mind
Hellboy: The Crooked Man receiving an R rating shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to fans who have been following the project since its inception. The movie’s director Brian Taylor (Crank, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance) previously shared back in February 2023 that the team was aiming for an R-rated take on the popular comic book character.
“We’ve definitely had a discussion of, you know, it doesn’t really serve anybody to make something R for R’s sake,” said Taylor. “To say it has to be R so we have to add A, B and C. But this material, this original material is dark and scary and violent and adult. So in order to really embrace that, we just don’t wanna have any handcuffs on.”
Based on the limited series of the same name, The Crooked Man takes place in the 1950s, following Hellboy and a rookie Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense agent as they get stranded in rural Appalachia where they discover a small community haunted by witches and led by The Crooked Man, a local devil with a troubling connection to Hellboy’s past.
The Crooked Man is the first Hellboy movie to have franchise creator Mike Mignola involved in a creative capacity, having co-wrote the screenplay with Chris Golden. Production on The Crooked Man took place in Bulgaria between March and May 2023, with a reported budget of around $25 million. The first trailer was released earlier this month.
Jack Kesy leads the cast of Hellboy: The Crooked Man as the titular heroic demon, with Martin Bassindale as Jeremiah Witkins/Crooked Man and Professor Trevor “Broom” Bruttenholm, Jefferson White as Tom Ferrell, Adeline Rudolph as Bobbie Jo Song, Joseph Marcell as Reverend Nathaniel Armstrong Watts, Leah McNamara as Effie Kolb, and Hannah Margetson as Cora Fisher.
Hellboy: The Crooked Man does not yet have a release date.
Source: FilmRatings.com
