Guillermo del Toro, writer/director of the upcoming sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army, told reporters that the film carries Hellboy creator Mike Mignola's blessing, but goes off on its own path--and Mignola himself acknowledged that the movies are now their own thing.

"I said in the best analogy, it's like marrying a widow," del Toro said in a group interview in Beverly Hills, Calif., on June 30. "You have to be very respectful of the late husband, but at some point, you're going to get in bed. ... In the case of Hellboy, I've been blessed with a guy like Mike who is the most generous landlord of the Hellboy real estate. He says, essentially, move in, decorate it as you want, and make it yours. And he has done that."

Like the first film, Hellboy II is based on characters and situations from Mignola's Dark Horse comic-book series. But where the first film closely tracked Mignola's graphic novel Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, Hellboy II is an original story in which the title character (Ron Perlman) and the team at the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense must deal with an uprising against humans by magical creatures led by an elf prince (Luke Goss). (Del Toro wrote the screenplay, based on a new story by del Toro and Mignola together.)

Key differences from the graphic-novel franchise include Hellboy's romantic relationship with firestarter Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) and several new characters, including the evil Prince Nuada (Goss) and his empathetic twin, Princess Nuala (Anna Walton). The film also features a more phantasmagorical menagerie of fantasy creatures, reminiscent of those in del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. Though Mignola remains part of the films' creative process, he acknowledges that they are as much del Toro's creation as his own.

"I think I went through that process of letting go on the first picture," Mignola said in his own group interview. Mignola added: "As much as I went into Hellboy originally saying, 'Change whatever you want. Do whatever you want with it,' when you're sitting there in the office with him and I'm saying, 'Why don't we do this?' and he's saying, 'No, no, we'll do this,' I kind of go, 'Dude! That's my character, man!' ... So while we didn't run into any really big conflicts, there was a mental adjustment period for me. But so much of that mental adjustment was done on the first picture. Then with the second picture, I really went into it feeling like I was working on his characters."

But del Toro said that Mignola's influence can be felt throughout the movie. "The funny thing is, there [is] accidentally Mignola-esque stuff and purposefully Mignola stuff, because Mike and I did come up with the basic storyline, and I think that that's the direction he's taking the magical world in the comics," del Toro said. "By coincidence. When I told him [the storyline], he said, 'That's exactly what we're planning already.' And there are moments in the film--like the moment the Golden Army opens--that [are] completely chiaroscuro, backlit by the fire, and if you freeze-frame it, that would be a Mignola frame."

Hellboy II: The Golden Army opens July 11. --Patrick Lee, News Editor