Hellboy, along with action franchises Rambo, Expendables and Has Fallen could all become TV projects, according to a new interview with Millennium Media president Jeffrey Greenstein. While the production company is currently working on the next Expendables movie, they have their eye on taking their existing IP into the television world.
Hellboy would potentially be the most interesting character to develop on television, as the comics offer much untapped potential. The character has had an uneven run on film. 2004’s Hellboy and its sequel Hellboy II (2008) – both directed by Guillermo del Toro – were generally well received. But the less said about the 2019 reboot starring David Harbour, the better.
Sylvester Stallone has returned to one of his best-known characters – Rocky – in the recent Creed films to critical acclaim. The reignition of his other iconic character – Rambo – in 2019’s Last Blood did not fare quite as well. However, giving the character a new lease of life on TV, perhaps in a prequel, could do better.
The Has Fallen franchise stars Gerard Butler as a US secret service agent and Aaron Eckhart as the President. It began in 2013 with Olympus Has Fallen and has so-far spawned two sequels, with a third – Night Has Fallen – given the greenlight in November 2020. There are two more movies planned to follow Night Has Fallen. Clearly, Millennium Media see the potential in the franchise, and there is some precedent with TV shows such as Amazon’s Jack Ryan in a similar vein.
The Expendables is the jewell in the Millennium crown, boasting a huge ensemble of action stars. The fourth film in that franchise is in production, seven years after the last one. How something like The Expendables would work on TV remains to be seen.
Greenstein states; “Our focus has always been on feature film, we do have a slate of TV that we’re developing. But my plan is to focus on our IP within the TV space and build out Has Fallen TV, Rambo TV, Expendables TV. We’re playing around with Hellboy TV. So there are lots of opportunities, but I really want to launch something IP-driven first before we start developing original content.”