Todd McFarlane is doubling-down on the promise that his upcoming Spawn movie, based on the Image Comics character he created, will be just as gruesome as his comic book counterpart.
Spawn is a dark, violent comic that centers on a former soldier who ends up working for Hell after his death, and the version McFarlane wants to make is an R-rated take that downplays Spawn’s costumed adventuring and plays up some of the horror and supernatural elements.
Speaking to Nerdist, McFarlane warned, “There’s no joy… There’s gonna be no fun lines in it, and it’s just gonna be this dark, ugly two hours worth of movie, which is essentially what a lot of supernatural/horror movies are anyway. There’s not a lot of funny in them. And that seems to be a weird hurdle for a lot of people in this city to get over because they sort of go into a superhero/Avengers default all the time.”
Jamie Foxx is set to play Al Simmons, the man who becomes Spawn. Jeremy Renner will play Detective Twitch Williams, who along with his partner Sam Burke are usually the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of the Spawn Universe, but Sam isn’t part of the movie, so it seems Twitch will be a little less light as well.
After the critical panning of 1997’s Spawn movie, McFarlane is taking the reins himself and hoping for a much darker comic book movie than what fans are used to. In the sometimes candy-coated world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he assures fans that he is pushing Spawn into terrifying territory. For a long time, Hollywood was extremely wary of making R-rated comic book movies, but the success of Deadpool and Logan proved that there is an audience for more mature and violent superheroes
Blumhouse Productions is the company behind Spawn, and with movies including Paranormal Activity, The Purge and the Halloween reboot under its belt, this should fit with McFarlane’s vision.
Source: Nerdist
