Mike Mignola’s popular antihero Hellboy gets his animated day in the sun once again thanks to the folks at Starz Home Entertainment. Fans can pick up the new 75-minute DVD release Hellboy: Blood & Iron in stores today. The feature outing first aired on Cartoon Network in March and was well received fans of Mignola’s seminal comic-book creation. and was generally well received by fans of Mike Mignola’s comic-book creation.
With Hellboy: Blood & Iron, supervising producer and director Tad Stones (Buzz Lightyear of Star Command) says they set out to make the kind of horror film that legendary British studio Hammer Films would have made if it wasn’t restricted to modst budgets. The atmospheric, gothic tale goes back and forth from the present day to 1939, when a young Professor Broom first faced off against a powerful female vampire named Erzsebet Ondrusko. Decades later, it seems that someone is trying to bring her back and Broom (John Hurt) wants to investigate the worrisome development himself. However, Hellboy (Ron Perlman), Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) and other agents from the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense take it upon themselves to tag along and end up getting more than they bargained for as they battle werewolves, ghosts, harpies and Erzsebet herself.
Blood and Iron is the second animated Hellboy movie, the first being Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms. On both films, Stones collaborated on the story with franchise creator Mike Mignola. Mignola also serves as a creative producer on the animated pics, along with Oscar-nominated filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who directed the 2004 live-action Hellboy feature and earned an Oscar nomination for critically acclaimed fantasy film Pans Labyrinth.
DVD bonus features include the featurettes Reversal of Fortune: Professor Broom’s Story and The Iron Shoes: The Animated Debut, as well as an alternative ‘crappy’ ending, audio commentary from Mignola, Stones and Vic Cook, a Mike Mignola e-comic exclusive titled Pennangalan and an exclusive, 32-page Hellboy Animated: Blood & Iron comic book. The DVD carries the suggested retail price of $19.98.
Also out in stores today is Sony’s first-quarter release Ghost Rider, featuring Nicolas Cage as Marvel’s motorcyclist superhero who transforms into a skull-faced angel of vengeance to battle evil. Joining Cage are Peter Fonda as the demon Mephistropheles and Wes Bentley as Blaze’s chief adversary. Director Mark Steven Johnson (Daredevil)also gets solid performances from supporting actors Donal Logue, Eva Mendes and Sam Elliott. The movie features sterling vfx, courtesy of the teams at Sony Pictures Imageworks, who were aided by Digital Dreams, CafeFX, Gray Matter FC, Halon, Satellite and Gentle Giant. Although the critics didn’t care much for the movie, audiences responded well to the tune of $116 million domestically.
Sony is also releasing an extended two-disc version ($35), which features scenes not included in the theatrical version and several behind-the-scenes documentaries. Rounding out the release is commentary from writer-director Mark Steven Johnson and vfx supervisor Kevin Mack, and an audio track with producer Gary Foster.
