The mid 90’s were lousy with edgy anti-heroes, but none were more edgy or morally ambiguous than Spawn. Fans of Image Comic’s avenging demon have cause to celebrate, as Todd McFarlane, Image’s co-founder and Spawn’s less evil parent, has confirmed a new film on the horizon.
Rumors of a film reboot have been floating around the internet for a good while, but, on an upcoming episode of AMC’s Geeking Out, correspondent Tiffany Smith asks McFarlane flat out if we’ll be getting the gift of cinematic Spawn, to which he replies “The simple answer is yes.”
McFarlane continued to explain that this will be completely separate from the 1997 film (One of my favorite bad movies), and be a complete reboot of the franchise’s film universe. This goes along with previous statements by McFarlane. In a February 2016 interview with Comicbook.com, McFarlane told fans that any upcoming Spawn film would not be a superhero movie.
“I’d put it more into horror/suspense/supernatural genre,” said McFarlane. “If you take the movie The Departed meets Paranormal Activity, something like that.” The picture shown off by McFarlane during the Geeking Out segment seems to confirm this, presenting us with a more sinister, ghostly character than the leather-clad character that we’re used to.
The film will sport an R rating, which is probably for the best. Of all the popular comic book franchises that I can think of, Spawn is probably the least family friendly, and a more horrifying direction can only reinforce that idea. The way McFarlane talks about this, the stranger a picture I get in my mind. He talks about how he wants this to be set in a real world where Spawn is the only fantastical element. He compares our zombie protagonist to the shark from Jaws. It sounds like this will be something more like a slasher or monster movie, but with Micheal Myers as the hero rather than the plucky teenagers.
