Video:Mike Mignola Interview - Hellboy II The Golden Army
with Rebecca MurrayIf you're a fan of the big, red, cigar-smoking dude with horns and a fondness for kittens, then it's Mike Mignola you have to thank. Mignola created the comics and worked closely with Guillermo del Toro to bring Hellboy to the big screen.See Transcript
Transcript:Mike Mignola Interview - Hellboy II The Golden Army
Rebecca Murray from About.com Hollywood Movies at the Los Angeles Film Festival and Universal Pictures' World Premiere of Hellboy II: The Golden Army.
Hellboy Creator Mike Mignola
So this one isn't based on any one of your stories in particular, right? This is a new take on Hellboy?
Mike Mignola: "Right. We started out trying to adapt one of my stories for the film. After about 8 hours we hit a snag and said, 'Ah, let's just make up something new.' Guillermo was in pre-Pan's Labyrinth mode so he was thinking of fairies and elves and stuff. The stories I'm writing in Hellboy now are geared that way, so I think both of our minds were very much in the same place. So when we hit a snag on the story we were trying to adapt, we just said, 'Let's do fairies instead.'"
How easy is it to work with him, collaborating and writing together?
Mike Mignola: "It is easy. It's really fun. I know when it comes to the film, he's the boss. He listens to me a lot. And the beauty is we're so much on the same page that there really aren't any battles. I mean, especially with the second picture. The first film since it was like the first time around and we were kind of, 'How much do we stick the comic?' and stuff like that, with the second picture he had already translated these characters onto film, so the second film was so much more about continuing what was started in the first film. So I mean, I contributed a lot but in a lot of ways I felt like I was there kind of just getting to watch him make a movie."
When it's a new story people haven't seen before and it's made up directly for the film, is it going to satisfy fans because it's not something they're used to seeing from you?
Mike Mignola: "I think the first film was so embraced by the fans, despite some pretty big changes in the characters, my feeling is if they accepted the first film, they shouldn't have any trouble accepting the second film. Because certain relationships are different from the film and the comic, and this is a continuation of those characters, the storyline does veer away from what I established in the comic. But it's still true to the spirit of the comic. I mean, the characters still feel like my characters."
And number 3? When is that going to come?
Mike Mignola: "A lot of it will depend I think on opening weekend box office. But it'll certainly be fun to sit down and do it. I hope we get a chance to do it."
Do you already have story ideas running through your head?
Mike Mignola: "If everything Guillermo tells me is going to be in the third picture, the third picture is going to be 38 hours long. Everything that didn't fit in the first movie, he said, 'Oh, we'll do it in the second movie.' So there's a lot of stuff. I don't know exactly what the story will be, but there's certainly a lot of stuff to work with."