Some have said that he’s a cross between Venom and the Punisher but with Doctor Strange’s cape, but if there’s one thing that Spawn truly is, it’s that he’s just totally bad-ass. There’s no better time than now for a Spawn movie reboot, and with writer-director Todd McFarlane hoping to get all the freedom he wants and needs for this project, you can be sure that it will be absolutely perfect.
The Spawn movie reboot currently has no release date, but because we just love to torture ourselves with anticipation, here are just a few of the things we desperately want to see in the film.
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R-rated Goodness
Todd McFarlane himself has said that the Spawn movie reboot will NOT be a superhero flick, with the rubber costumes and the over-the-top special effects. It will be more of a thriller, a horror movie, with Spawn moving around in the dark as a specter or a ghost. It’s pretty much going to be like Jaws, really, and he’s even compared it to Paranormal Activity.
That said, with the success of Deadpool and Logan, McFarlane wants the film to be dark, gritty, and nastily R-rated, which makes perfect sense. So no, there won’t be some guy in a costume running around fighting bad guys. There’ll just be this eerie and gruesome goodness that Spawn, when it was first released in May 1992, is known and loved for. We’d love to see Al Simmons stringing up criminals or crooked cops or corrupt government officials from the shadows, picking them off one by one along with all the demonic suspense and bloody gore.
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Horror and Suspense
Because Todd McFarlane wants complete control over his project (which is completely sensible), he’s planning to pitch the Spawn movie reboot as a super-low budget film that will have both a tight script and an even tighter budget. That way, the Hollywood execs will let him do whatever he wants—and that’s to make the Spawn movie reboot a horror film. He’s said that once the producers see his low-budget plan, “They’re like ‘Oh, okay. It’s not like Todd’s coming in here asking for $100 million and then saying let me direct my first movie. He’s saying ‘Give me $10 million to make a little horror movie and let’s see if we can scare some people. We’ve done that tons of times.’”
Don’t expect this reboot to be anything like the film version of Spawn back in 1997 with John Leguizamo, Michael Jai White, and Martin Sheen. McFarlane has already said that it’ll be creepy and will “scare the shit out of you.” Yes, please.
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Twisted Justice
As one of the best-selling independent comics of all time, Spawn is known for being the anti-hero, using his twisted brand of justice to defend the homeless people he considers his family. In 1997’s HBO animated series, they actually sort-of pulled everything off perfectly, and in the reboot, we’d love to see Spawn get down and dirty with the true evils of this world.
An example that immediately comes to mind is Spawn bringing “justice” to Billy Kincaid, a child molester that Spawn unleashes his vengeance on by stabbing him with popsicle sticks and hanging a sign on him that says he made him scream—a chilling play on the “ice cream” children’s melody.
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Showdown with The Dark Knight
Okay, so Spawn’s crossover with Batman isn’t really canon, but wouldn’t that just be absolutely nerd-gasmic? To see the Caped Crusader face off with Spawn is something that will revolutionize crossovers forever—ridiculous, yes, but also fabulous. In 1994, the great Frank Miller collaborated with Todd McFarlane in a one-shot, in which Bruce travels to New York City to work on a case where the decapitated heads of the homeless are being used as brains for cyborgs. It’s set in the world of The Dark Knight Returns, which is the Batman that Batfleck is based on, so is it possible? Obviously, in the comics, Spawn and Bats fight for a bit, then end up working together, which is pretty much the story of every major superhero crossover on the big screen right now.
So yeah, McFarlane has said that the Spawn movie reboot won’t be a superhero film, but wouldn’t it be fantastic to have both Spawn AND Batman moving in the shadows to snatch those bad guys up when they least expect it? They do have the same M.O., if you think about it.
What do you look forward to in the Spawn movie reboot the most? When do you think it’ll come out, and do you agree with Todd McFarlane’s new direction for this project? Let us know what you think!
