Per THR, it looks like we’ll have to wait a few more months to see what David Harbour’s take on Mike Mignola’s signature creation is like in full as it was announced today that the 2019 iteration of Hellboy is being pushed back 3 months from its initial January 11th opening date to April 5, 2019 – one week after Shazam!, which is only mere weeks after Captain Marvel, and just a little bit before the next Avengers film.

It’s going to be one packed Spring in terms of comic books on the big screen. And frankly, while delays in a film’s release can sometimes signal trouble, this may actually be a good sign. Traditionally, movies that are release widely in the first month of the year are where you’ll find releases of lowest quality (August being another dumping ground) and the studios are just trying to get them out of the way. This move to April, in a very competitive frame, could speak to growing confidence in the finished film.

We’ll get to see our first look at it at NYCC, as the cast (which includes Harbour, Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane, and Daniel Dae Kim) along with Mignola (who co-wrote the script with Andrew Cosby and his Baltimore collaborator Christopher Golden), will take part in a panel centered on the film, and we’ll surely end up seeing the first trailer there. Director Neil Marshall will not be in attendance.

In the meantime, Dark Horse just released an “all-in-one” omnibus collection of “Darkness Calls”, “The Wild Hunt”, and “The Storm and The Fury”; the three Mignola-Fegredo arcs that this film will take its chief inspiration from. Always fun to do a little pre-movie research.