Jack Kesy to play Hellboy in upcoming franchise reboot The Crooked Man

Are you ready for a new Hellboy? Millennium Media announced Thursday that Jack Kesy (12 Strong, Deadpool 2) has been cast as the big red monster hunter in the upcoming franchise reboot film The Crooked Man.

Based on the comic miniseries of the same name by creator Mike Mignola and artist Richard Corben, The Crooked Man will find the hero stranded in '50s Appalachia alongside a rookie BPRD agent. They discover a small community haunted by witches and the titular Crooked Man, a devil with a troubling connection to Hellboy's past. The story will therefore focus on a younger Hellboy at an earlier point in his career than we've seen in previous adaptations.

The new film will be directed by Brian Taylor (Crank) with a script by Mignola and genre journeyman Christopher Golden, a writer on Hellboy comics like The Bones of Giants and The Dragon Pool.

"Jack Kesy is a dynamic actor who has the ability to morph into his roles," Millennium Media executive Jonathan Yunger said in a statement. "His talent and stature are perfect for this younger Hellboy. I was very impressed with him while working together on The Outpost."

Kesy will thus become the third actor to play Hellboy on screen, after Ron Perlman and David Harbour. Perlman starred in director Guillermo del Toro's original 2004 Hellboy film and its 2008 sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army, while Harbour took over the role for the 2019 reboot directed by Neil Marshall. The 2019 Hellboy bombed at the box office, and Harbour recently revealed that he keeps a framed photo of himself in the costume to stay humble "whenever I'm feeling particularly good about myself."

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