Is there an appetite for a follow up to Spawn? The creator Todd McFarlane certainly thinks so in an interview with UGO through Moviehole:
McFarlane says the new movie will be about as close to the first one – which starred Michael Jai White and Martin Sheen – as Melbourne is to Mumbai.
“That one is sort of devoid of all comic book stuff. It’s a true spook movie in the vein of The Exorcist, or more recently with a movie like The Grudge or something like that.
The whole thing reads a bit oddly, but it sounds like his intentions are good for a follow up, and he seems to be looking at taking a different slant to everyone else in the comic adaptation world:
Ultimately, you never get a big giant look at him because he’s a ghost. All of sudden you turn and there is nothing there. I use Jaws as inspiration in a weird way. You don’t really see him in the first attack or the next couple of attacks. It wasn’t until a little later you see his mouth and some of the other stuff. The more I show him the less scary he will be so he will be more like a force of nature. There was this movie a few years ago called Jacob’s Ladder, so it will have creepy elements like that.
I do think that is an interesting take, instead of trying to bring the comic character to life on the big screen and recreate every physical aspect, hide them away and build the tension and suspense. Like the idea in Unbreakable, take away all the big costume and posturing of the hero and turn it into something closer to real life.
Sounds good, but there isn’t really much assistance from the Studios at the moment. They perhaps still want their heroes center screen and all dressed up:
Part of it is that no one wants to give us $70 million for the second movie. I can’t think big extravaganza so I have to go down low and keep the budget under $20 million. Which means no special effects…When we moved Spawn from New Line to Sony, Steve Niles and I did a script there. But as it stands right now Sony doesn’t want to let it up because they want some stupid number to buy it because they say they spent all this money.
Complications galore, but as is more and more the case in Hollywood of late, McFarlane is following the example of just going and getting it done, big dumb angry exec or not.
The deal that we were trying to make with one of the studios last week was that I would be writing, directing and producing it. We got the creative part set but we couldn’t get the co-financing aspect nailed down. Right now my intent is to just finance it myself and find a distributor later
Good on him. I have to say I’m not salivating at the prospect of another Spawn, but I am interested when the creatives and the non-financial driving force behind movies gets empowered and says to hell with the execs and Studios that are holding us back, let’s give the audience a movie.
Any Spawn fans out there like this take on the movie? Not even that, just apply the idea to your favourite superhero movie and think if you’d like it or not.
