Hellboy 2: The Angel Of Death’s Apocalyptic Prediction Explained

Here’s the hellish prediction made by the Angel of Death in Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. The Hellboy comics were created by Mike Mignola, and director Guillermo del Toro became such a fan that he dreamed of making a movie adaptation. The project spent years in development, and it was only after the success of del Toro’s Blade II that he got his chance. While the studio wanted Vin Diesel for the title role, del Toro stuck to his guns and insisted only Ron Perlman could do it. The actor was eventually cast and made a perfect Big Red and the resulting 2004 movie was a fun, pulpy adventure.

While it wasn’t a blockbuster smash it did robust business on DVD, which convinced Universal to pick up the bill for Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. The film was another solid success but while Guillermo del Toro envisioned a Hellboy trilogy, he soon became busy with other projects like Pacific Rim. His vision for Hellboy III was also an expensive one and given the modest returns of the previous movies, no studios were willing to finance it. The franchise was later rebooted with 2019’s R-rated Hellboy, which starred Stranger Things’ David Harbour. This Neil Marshall directed adventure was met with mixed reactions and underperformed financially.

Given that the Hellboy reboot failed to recoup its production budget, a follow-up is incredibly unlikely. Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy 2 found Red, Abe and Liz (Selma Blair) facing off against Luke Goss’ Prince Nuada, who leads an uprising on behalf of the repressed magical creatures of the world against humanity, and he wants to awaken the titular army of unkillable robots. During a battle with Nuada, Hellboy is stabbed by his spear, which breaks off a shard that will eventually kill him.

The third act of Hellboy 2 sees the gang travel to Northern Ireland, where the dormant Golden Army is located in the underground city of Bethmora. This also leads them to the Angel Of Death, an androgynous being who is Hellboy’s personal death angel and has been present at all the crossroads of his life. The Angel Of Death is played by Doug Jones – who also plays Abe – and its design is one of the most striking of the film. The angel has no eyes on its face, and instead, eyes cover its wings.

With Hellboy close to death, it’s up to Liz to talk to the angel. It explains that while it can save Red, it’s his destiny to eventually bring about the end of the world. If he dies now this will be prevented but if he lives, he will bring the apocalypse and Liz will suffer more than anyone. Even with that dire prediction, she chooses to save him and the Angel Of Death reveals the spear shard has already been removed. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army ends with the Golden Army and Nuada defeated, and Liz revealing to Red she’s expecting twins. While this should be happy news, it’s a little ominous considering his eventual destiny.

About The Author

Padraig Cotter
(3484 Articles Published)

It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

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A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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