Hellboy’s Behind the Scenes Problems Detailed in New Report

Neil Marshall’s Hellboy reboot movie isn’t getting a lot of love from the critics, and it seems like it was a trial to make behind the scenes, too.

A new report from The Wrap has shed light on a stack of issues that came up during production on the film, most of which were gleaned from insiders who didn’t want to be named “because they feared career repercussions for speaking out.”

Needless to say, it all makes for some premium yikes reading.

According to the report, director Neil Marshall, who broke out with early-00s horror movies Dog Soldiers and The Descent before helming some of Game Of Thrones‘ best episodes, repeatedly clashed with two of Hellboy‘s producers throughout filming, and this boiled over when they fired Marshall’s cinematographer of choice, Sam McCurdy. The noted “insiders” claim that McCurdy was sacked from the movie because producers Lawrence Gordon and Lloyd Levin wanted to “send a message” to Marshall that despite being the film’s director, he was not in charge.

“While my client will not comment on why Sam McCurdy was fired as that is a private matter, be advised that it was a group decision and it had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Mr. Levin supposedly sending any kind of ‘message’ to Neil Marshall,” Levin’s lawyer shot back after hearing of the report. He also suggested that Marshall was probably more than happy for these claims to be aired, indicating that it would become a nice “puff piece” for the director.

The report doesn’t stop with McCurdy’s firing, however. Levin also apparently tried to be a co-director of sorts on the Hellboy set, cutting Marshall off when he was talking to the actors and dishing out alternate instructions.

In addition, Hellboy star David Harbour was noted to have “repeatedly walked off set” after Marshall wanted him to do more takes, and he and co-star Ian McShane also apparently helped others to re-write the script as production went on. Both of these claims have been denied by Levin’s lawyer.

The conclusion of the report states that Marshall didn’t even have final cut on Hellboy, and that the producers took it off him when he handed in his own version, hinting that they likely made changes to it afterwards.

Everyone else involved in the Hellboy report has so far declined to comment on these revelations.