October 17, 2006 - Director Guillermo del Toro will likely be enjoying the Oscar limelight in early 2007, as his Pan’s Labyrinth is expected to be a shoe-in for a Best Foreign Language Film nomination, but the filmmaker may be too busy to enjoy the accolades at that time. That’s because production on his long-awaited sequel to Hellboy is currently scheduled to start shooting in January in Europe.

"We are in preproduction," del Toro tells IGN of the film, which many observers had come to believe would never get a greenlight. "Both with Hellboy 1 and Hellboy 2, they happened right at the moment when we said, ’They’re not happening. It looks like we better move on.’ And at that moment something happened that made them go ahead. We have Francisco Ruiz Velasco, Wayne Barlowe, TyRuben Ellingson, [and] Mike Mignola designing creatures right now, and we have the movie being budgeted in London and in Budapest. We hope to start shooting next year."

Most of the stars of the 2004 film will be back, including Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, and Doug Jones, though del Toro says that Jones might actually get to voice his Abe Sapien creature-sidekick this time out (David Hyde Pierce was dubbed over Jones in the first film): "He’ll get another chance and I am, let’s say, 90% sure that he’ll nail it. But I don’t want to get the pressure off the guy yet!" Additionally, del Toro says that - in a rare show of Hollywood restraint - the sequel’s budget will be around $70 million, which is very close to that of the first film.

"Universal came to us," the director recalls. "When they read the script and heard the number, they were interested. Because people saw that we gave a lot of value for the $66 million of Hellboy. We essentially had an O.K. theatrical run, nothing spectacular, but we did incredibly well on DVD, so the movie made its money and some. We did very good in ancillary markets. We did very good in replay on cable and so forth, and toys and this and that. And I think that Universal is interested in the fact that now they can have a franchise that they enjoy for a price they will never feel guilty about."

The question must be raised then: Does that mean a Hellboy 3 is in the works? Del Toro concedes that he has an idea of where he would take a third film in the series.

"I’ve talked to [Hellboy creator Mike] Mignola about the third one. He seemed to like [my idea], and that is that the way the love story would pay off in the third movie would be completely unexpected," hints del Toro. "I knew what I wanted to do on the first one, but I had no idea if we ever would get to do a second one. And now that we are I really am laying down the breadcrumbs that will lead you to a very, very - hopefully - powerful denouement of that loving couple."

Which isn’t to say that Hellboy 2: The Golden Army will be a cliffhanger. Whether or not a third film in the series gets made will come down to how part two performs financially (after all, Universal had no problem killing another would-be franchise recently, Joss Whedon’s Serenity, when it underperformed), and del Toro knows that better than anyone.

"The second one is self-contained and if we never get to do the third one there’s only one element that people will have hanging where they will go, ’Oh Jesus, I wish they had done a third one.’ But if not, it’s fine," says del Toro, before adding with a grin, "If anyone listening has $80 million, we can assure you we can do a third one."