Our Jack Kesy Hellboy Scoop Confirmed By Deadline
Our exclusive report that Jack Kesy was cast as Hellboy in the new reboot has been confirmed.
Just 24 hours ago, we here at Giant Freakin Robot delivered the exclusive report that Jack Kesy was cast as Hellboy in the newly rebooted movie. Today, Deadline has confirmed our report that Kesy will star in the rebooted franchise and added that additional casting is currently in the works. Kesy’s Hellboy: The Crooked Man will be a hard reboot that will completely ignore the preceding movies featuring Ron Perlman and David Harbour.
Jack Kesy’s Hellboy is in the prime of pre-production, with casting and planning still in the works. While we don’t have an expected release date yet, the plot for Hellboy: The Crooked Man has been revealed. The first film in the reboot will take place in 1950s Appalachia and follow Hellboy and an unnamed Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense agent as they discover a small community tormented by witches, led by the titular Crooked Man.
While fans will have to grapple with the grief that the reboot will star Jack Kesy and not the OG Hellboy, Ron Perlman, there are high hopes for the upcoming film because it will be the first Hellboy movie to be written by the comic book creator himself, Mike Mignola. Mignola, along with debut feature film writer Chris Golden will pen the script, and Brian Taylor, who is known for directing and writing the 2017 comedy horror thriller Mom and Dad, will direct.
Currently, there is no further news as to who will join Jack Kesy in the Hellboy cast. Kesy himself is a lesser-known actor in comparison to the men who have played Hellboy in the past, which means this role could heavily influence his career. Kesy is most known for playing Roller Husser in 30 episodes of TNT’s comedy-drama series Claws, but he has already dipped his toes into the comic book world before.
In 2018, Jack Kesy played Black Tom Cassidy, an X-Men villain in Deadpool 2. While his character was supposed to be a major player in the film, his role ended up getting reduced, and Kesy ultimately only saw a few minutes of screen time.
Jack Kesy has also appeared in franchise reboots before taking on his upcoming role of Hellboy. Kesy was in the 2017 Baywatch movie with Dwayne Johnson and Alexandria Daddario. The film ended up being a total flop, so here’s hoping that Hellboy will not follow the same path … again.
David Harbour played the half-demon before Jack Kesy in the last Hellboy film reboot, released in 2019. Harbour’s Hellboy wasn’t only a flop at the box office but also caused outrage amongst the fans. The main reason is likely due to the Hellboy fanbase’s love for Ron Perlman’s portrayal of the character in Guillermo del Toro’s original films, Hellboy (2004) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Perlman was supposed to appear in a third Hellboy movie, but the film was canceled for budgetary reasons, and fans have never really gotten over the loss.
This means that the fate of Jack Kesy’s Hellboy is largely up to whether or not fans are ready to accept a new actor in the part. This time, Millennium Media (the production company that owns the rights to the Hellboy franchise) is seeking a different angle by creating a story around a much younger and ultimately very different Hellboy than what’s been seen before. Hopefully, this will be enough of a distinction to appease the fans.
