No great surprises here, but a sad confirmation of what most have suspected: Mike Mignola says it's extremely unlikely that Guillermo del Toro will ever return to Hellboy.

Spanners in the Hellboy works have been reported before, with del Toro blaming tough production and writing processes, and Big Red himself Ron Perlman: "He's doing Sons Of Anarchy without make-up. He's spoiled!" The key statement was probably the director's heartfelt "I know how it ends and I don't know if I want to see that ending," but he still maintained that he "would love to do it."

Speaking at a convention in Calgary though, Mignola responded to the inevitable questions by saying he can't imagine it ever happening: "I love Guillermo; he's cute! But in every interview there's a new story on what his next movie is, and he honestly believes he's going to do them all. Last I heard, he said 'I'm never gonna get back to Hellboy'. I'm not surprised, because he won't live long enough to do a tenth of the movies he's told me he's going to make."

So no checking back in with Hellboy and Liz' twins, and no Beast of the Apocalypse shenanigans... at least on screen. But Mignola has always said that he was ambivalent about the films concluding before his comics did. "If del Toro does my ending, there won't be a lot of surprise when I get there," he said last year. Sounds like he needn't worry any more.