After years of back and forth chatter, which ultimately did nothing but get our hopes up, director Guillermo del Toro has admitted that Hellboy 3 just isn’t going to happen. The desire is there, he’s got a great idea, and Ron Perlman is dying to come back. But frankly none of that justifies the $150 million price tag that film would require.

During his recent Reddit AMA, del Toro was asked about the status of Hellboy 3, and said:

“Well, you know, we don’t have that movie on the horizon, but the idea for it was to have Hellboy finally come to terms with the fact that his destiny, his inevitable destiny, is to become the beast of the Apocalypse, and having him and Liz face the sort of, that part of his nature, and he has to do it, in order to be able to ironically vanquish the foe that he has to face in the 3rd film. He has to become the best of the Apocalypse to be able to defend humanity, but at the same time he becomes a much darker being. It’s a very interesting ending to the series, but I don’t think it will happen.”

Damn. The first two Hellboy movies are excellent, and perfectly suited for del Toro’s dark, original, and a little bit twisted sensibilities. What’s even worse is that it sounds like he had an exceptionally exciting ending to the series that would have done justice to the things he set up in Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Alas, we’ll just have to pine after what could have been, and pray that someday, someday, del Toro will launch the biggest Kickstarter the world has ever seen.

Del Toro may not be making Hellboy 3 a reality, but he does have a pretty packed resume. He just finished filming his horror film Crimson Peak, and just got the greenlight for Pacific Rim 2 (which will be accompanied by an animated series). He’s also an executive producer on the new FX series The Strain, and is eyeing an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness. Oh, and he recently announced that he’ll work on a small black and white film as well. Because he clearly doesn’t have enough on his plate.

Tell us, are you disappointed that we’ll never get Hellboy 3? Or are you still holding out hope that the stars will align someday in the future? Sound off in the comment section below.