in a Reddit AMA, Del Toro said, "Well, you know, we don't have that movie on the horizon, but the idea for it was to have Hellboy finally come to terms with the fact that his destiny, his inevitable destiny, is to become the beast of the Apocalypse, and having him and Liz face the sort of, that part of his nature, and he has to do it, in order to be able to ironically vanquish the foe that he has to face in the 3rd film. He has to become the beast of the Apocalypse to be able to defend humanity, but at the same time he becomes a much darker being. It's a very interesting ending to the series, but I don't think it will happen. ... We have gone through basically every studio and asked for financing, and they are not interested. I think that the first movie made its budget back, and a little bit of profit, but then it was very very big on video and DVD. The story repeated itself with the second already, it made its money back at the box office, but a small margin of profit in the release of the theatrical print, but was very very big on DVD and video. Sadly now from a business point of view all the studios know is that you don't have that safety net of the DVD and video, so they view the project as dangerous." In July 2015, del Toro said that Legendary Pictures might fund Hellboy 3 if Pacific Rim: Uprising does well at the box office: "The hard fact is that the movie's going to need about $120 million and there's nobody knocking down our doors to give it to us. It's a little beyond Kickstarter." After del Toro left the director's chair for Pacific Rim: Uprising, the deal fell through. In February 2017, Del Toro announced via Twitter, "Must report that 100% [Hellboy 3] will not happen." In July 2019, Perlman said that he would still love to finish the trilogy with del Toro, ignoring the reboot, and that he thought it could happen if financing could be found. In January 2022, Perlman encouraged Del Toro to proceed with the sequel, saying that they owed it to the fans to get it done and that "it would be an epic conclusion." In 2010, Hellboy screenwriter Peter Briggs was asked