Lionsgate has released the first official poster for their upcoming reboot of the popular franchise Hellboy. When the film was first teased early last year, it was announced with a subtitle that put the projects story out there right away, as it was titled Rise of the Blood Queen. It got many diehard fans excited, and apparently the studio thinks excited enough that they can drop the subtitle and just stick with the classic title of Hellboy, which will hopefully not confuse those who aren’t considered your go-to fans.

Let’s be real, the title does not matter. Rise of the Blood Queen is cool, but I’m personally okay with them leaving that behind as the word “rise” has been featured in way too many titles over the last decade. I understand trying to differentiate yourself from Guillermo Del Toro and Eon Perlman’s Hellboy, but if the studio and marketing team can do a bang-up job of promoting this film with good trailers and great posters like this one, then it will not matter. Plus, I believe that it’s been long enough to where people may have even forgotten there are two previously great Hellboy movies out there.

As I mentioned, this is a great poster. I’ve scrambled through the Internet to see that quite a few of people aren’t a fan of the tagline. I can understand their reasoning, but I think it’s awesome. It fits the character. Look how badass and “legendary” he looks! Plus, it’s the perfect kickoff to let everyone know what kind of film we’ll be experiencing. I’m excited to see what director Neill Marshall and star David Harbour have in store for us. With the previous franchise being successful as far as response goes, they’ll have to do something quite different to get everyone on board, especially the hardcore fans of del Toro’s movies. As a fan myself, this poster did nothing but get me absolutely pumped to see a first trailer. Bring on the apocalypse!

Speaking of the apocalypse, for those of you who aren’t too familiar with the property and the character of Hellboy, here’s perfectly little summarized article about the character thanks to Collider.com:

Fans of the character know that Hellboy is the “Right Hand of Doom”, a prophet of the apocalypse who is supposed to unlock the prison of a primordial demon dragon and bring about the end times. However, what makes the character so lovable is that his personality is just that of a working stiff. He made traffic in the paranormal, but he’s positively blue-collar in everything he does, so he doesn’t really want any part of his dark destiny, right down to shaving off his demon horns.

As you can see from the poster, his horns are there in all their glory. Could it just be part of the image or will it play into the overall story? I’m very interested in finding out. The film does have a panel set for this weekend at New York Comic Con, which could mean a first trailer. If so, come back here right away for not just the trailer, but our thoughts on how it looks! Also starting Ian McShane, Daniel Dae Kim, Sasha Lane and Milla Jovovich as the Blood Queen, Marshall’s Hellboy is now set to be released on April 12th, 2019.