Over the years you may have noticed me taking an inordinate amount of joy in watching Todd McFarlane bullshit us in regards to a new Spawn movie. And then over the weekend at Comic-Con I had to sorta eat my words when McFarlane teamed up with the awesome horror folks at Blumhouse (Get Out, Split) to finally make his R-rated Spawn movie a reality. A buddy of mine joked at the time that if McFarlane got his way he'd make a detective movie in which Spawn was a background character in his own story. And y'know what? He wasn't far off.
Speaking with Vulture, McFarlane says Spawn won't actually feature that much in the film. Say what the f**k now, son?
“The lead isn’t really Spawn, which was always sort of odd when I was pitching it for years and years to Hollywood. I’m not going to ever have Spawn in a latex suit standing there going, ‘I am here, boys and girls, and I will save you and your day will be grand.’ ”
Um, what? This is a terrible idea, and it explains why studios were shooting this thing down with ease like Tom Hardy in Dunkirk. Who wants a Spawn movie in which Spawn isn't the lead? And his assertion that he needs to be standing around in a latex suit saving people is ridiculous. If he thinks he can make a feature film like one of his comics, which didn't always feature Spawn all of the time, then he's sadly mistaken. Fans pay to see Spawn, and this project is sounding terrible already.
I get what he's saying, that Spawn will be more like Jaws, more terrifying unseen rather than seen, but I'm not sure that's the right approach. Why? Because Spawn has a background, personality, and history needing to be explored. A shark doesn't.
McFarlane also says he wants Leonardo DiCaprio for a starring role. Just relax, okay, Todd? Baby steps.
But we'll see. Maybe he'll prove me wrong. As I've said before, I WANT to be proven wrong because Spawn is too good of a character not to have a great franchise. But he's also too good of a character to be put on the sidelines in his own movie.
