Hellboy is a 2004 American superhero film based on the Dark Horse Comics character, created by Mike Mignola. Written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, it is the first live-action film in the Hellboy franchise. Ron Perlman stars as the titular character, alongside Selma Blair, Jeffrey Tambor, Karel Roden, Rupert Evans, and John Hurt. The film draws inspiration from the debut comic Hellboy: Seed of Destruction. In the film, a charismatic demon-turned-investigator named "Hellboy" works with the secretive Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense to suppress paranormal threats, when a resurrected sorcerer seeks to make Hellboy fulfill his destiny by triggering the apocalypse.