McFarlane Resurrects Spawn
By Josh Tyler: 2007-05-31 09:04:46 


The impossible has happened. Todd McFarlane has actually figured out a way to make Spawn 2. How is he going to do it? By paying for it out of his wallet.

Moviehole has picked up a story from Home Media Magazine in which McFarlane talks about his character's future movie possibilities. Apparently he's already in the midst of writing a Spawn 2 script himself, and promises it'll be different from the lame, 1997 version New Line Cinema did. McFarlane says, "I can make a spooky, suspenseful thriller that will scare the crap out of you." I guess that means it will be darker?

Spawn is a CIA agent killed by his boss and sent to hell where he makes a deal with a demon to see his wife again. He's transformed into a hellspawn and sent back to Earth where he tries to hang on to his humanity while battling criminal and supernatural elements. He's more of a dark, twisted, anti-hero than a traditional good guy.

The character debuted on paper in 1992 and reached the height of his popularity in the mid-90s, a little before the first movie came out. Even then the film was sort of a flop. Ten years later, interest in the character has cooled, the comics aren't selling as well, and self-financed or not it seems to me that McFarlane has missed his window. Maybe he can force this sequel into happening though sheer force of will, but I doubt there's much of an audience for it.

from: cinemablend

Todd McFarlane is still alive?

:o

Todd loves flaunting his money (remember all the junk he used to buy?) and I guess for him this is the ultimate way. Wouldent it be hilarious if he did it with action figures like the "I'm a marvel, I'm a DC" on a budget of $20 (for beer and snacks)?

Still honestly it dosent matter that nobody really cares much about the character, a whole bunch of movies that come out are comic book movies and people dont even know it like Bullet proof Monk. Also honestly I think not that many mainstream people had heard about Daredevil. But throw together good special effects, some scares, some high profile actors and people will go see it, then it will either become a joke (catwoman) or a classic (x-batspidermen returns)

I'll give Todd some credit for wanting to see a truely hardcore R-rated superhero movie and a fully adapted version of Spawn on screen. Execution of said "perfect script" of his would be the biggest challenge and most likely fall short unless he can rally up a great director and crew to help him along the way.

New Line's Spawn just hit the glass ceiling with superhero movies and that is a staple PG-13 rating that the ratings board holds over these films because of them originating from comic books (lower rating = bigger audience). Blade managed to pull this off by pure luck since it was billed as a horror movie first and didn't already have a large established fan base to appeal to (heck I found more comic buds of mine drawn to Blade because of the 'ultimate' take on the character) until the sequals came about. Movie companies and producers want that mass media flood that comes with franchises and that ends up nerfing the whole "adult only" concept that a true horror film requires. Todd's animated Spawn series was the perfect version of the horror superhero he wanted and the lack of big budget FXs allowed him to out of pocket the whole series. If he was smart he should just contact the new CGI crew from the TMNT animated movie and get them on board with his script once they finish up with G-Force (or Gotchaman or Battle Of The Planets).

And we all have seen what happens when a comic book character ends up going too far into the horror realm - i.e. Man-Thing *shudders*

- CrimsonQuill

Did he write the script for the HBO cartoon series? If so, those were awesome. Not sure how that would translate to live action, though.

I actually liked the Spawn film from '97. Those were the days when Spawn was SO in..haha!

A new movie..idk. It just doesn't seem like the time for a Spawn movie.

If they make this movie a reboot of the series, then I'm in.  I mean, if he can pull it off right as a thriller, it could really work.  They need to make it like the cartoon.

And more importantly, they need to keep Marilyn Manson far away from the film's musical score.  I have never seen more out-of-place music than I did in the '97 movie.

Eh, I like "Long Hard Road" just fine. Get the tie in with hell? It makes sense.

Not only do I like the use of Manson's rock in movies, I also like his score work.
McFarlaine's been talking about a darker Spawn movie being shopped around since the original came out.  Guess he had to eventually give up on anyone else producing it.  I hope he does manage to pull it off though.

Heck, for a long time McFarlane talked about doing a Spawn movie basically from the point of view of those two cops, whose names I forget, and that Spawn would be like Jaws in Jaws, meaning, you rarely see him, he would just have popped in for the action that intruded on the cops' lives.  Then the original Spider-man movie came out and made a bajillion dollars, and suddenly, super-hero movies with costumes and everything else were all the rage.  McFarlane's tune changed, and still nothing has come of it.  We'll see I guess, but don't hold your breath.

The only way I'll be interested is if it has "Boogaloo" in the subtitle.

QuoteThe only way I'll be interested is if it has "Boogaloo" in the subtitle.

And the major villain is named Shabba-Doo, and Spawn has to fight a demoniacally possessed dancing Broom...

I don't think the success of Spider-Man is enough to make Spawn as big of a success. If anything, they should go the Constantine route and release it as a horror/action thriller during the fall or winter. It will do its best during that time, most likely.

Spawning A Sequel For 15-Year-Old Girls
By Jason Morgan: 2007-07-23 19:16:44 


During my idle surfing I found Spawn on TV over the weekend. After watching a good 15 minutes, I actually wondered to myself, "Who thought making this movie was a good idea?" and then continued to ride my channel wave. Unfortunately, Spawn creator Todd McFarlane hasn't let go of his superhero like everyone else has and he is still pushing for the sequel, according to MTV.com.

It's a case of an artist who is too in love with his work. The interview with MTV is long and mostly pointless as McFarlane waxes intellectual about a superhero from hell. The gist of his jabbering is that the new Spawn movie will be a reboot, following the trends of other successful comic book movie resurrections (e.g. Batman Begins). But I'll leave it to McFarlane to explain:

"Right, I'd call this more of a suspense thriller. I'm going to use a big example which may seem sort of loopy, but to me it's closer to Jaws in that — and this is one of the problems that some of the studios had — Spawn won't talk. He's just a being in this movie — which again, some people may find odd — but, you know, Jaws didn't talk a hell of a lot in his movie either," McFarlane says triumphantly. "But you knew that when he came out, something was going to happen. You know what I mean? You've made the presence known enough that nothing good was going to come of his presence being there."

"So it's sort of the same concept. I'm not going for Freddy Krueger horror and I'm not going for Spider-Man action superhero. I'm not even going for a guy who's going to sit there and talk. You're never actually ever going to see him in his cape or costume in any kind of direct light. It's just going to be this thing that's just going to come, and if it's there then buddy, you're going to have a bad day."

So, we'll never actually see Spawn.... To my recollection, we saw the shark in Jaws quite a bit, unless McFarlane never made it past the 20 minute mark. But Spawn is just going to be this being that we sense? Or maybe the hero or anti-hero of the film will shoot spawn full of a couple oxygen-filled, yellow barrels that will make him visible. So I take it that McFarlane isn't quite going for the die-hard comic book fans with this one:

"My 15-year-old daughter and her friends like to go to spooky movies, and they'll go and see The Hills Have Eyes and 1408 [because] they like to get spooked. So what does ["Spawn 2"] have to look like to get that group? Because if I can get that group, then [I can] get any group," he explains. "I mean, that means it's a broad enough movie idea in which you don't also have to know anything about "Spawn" prior to walking in there. You don't have to have any knowledge, and it won't slow down the ride."

I think that says enough about McFarlane's mindset when it comes to his "upcoming" Spawn sequel. I could go on quoting the entire interview because McFarlane is clearly off his rocker. He calls the Spawn sequel his "Passion of the Anti-Christ" and then goes onto compare it to Crash and 300. God help that man.

I remember Toys R us was selling some new Spawn figures and the story behind that Spawn was so PG.  He had Friends to help him battle and the looked like super-size JLA cartoon figures.  If Todd really want to bring back Spawn FINISH THE SERIES YOU STARTED ON HBO!!!!!