Of all the superheroes that have gotten movies over the past 50 years, the one that really got the short end of the stick was Todd McFarlane’s Spawn. For those who may not be familiar with Spawn, the comics centered around a man named Al Simmons, a soldier that was betrayed by his employer and sent to Hell, where he makes a deal with the Devil so he can see his wife, Wanda, one last time. After 5 years, he returns to Earth as a Hellspawn with barely a memory of who he used to be. He encounters a former Hellspawn, Cogliostro, who tries to help him turn away from evil. He also encounters a demonic Clown who can transform into the demon known as the Violator. Spawn is one of the darker comic book “superheroes” out there. His abilities include teleportation, wielding chains, immortality to a certain extent, and shapeshifting among other things, and that’s just the supernatural side of things. When he was alive, Simmons was an expert marksman, martial artist, and former special forces operative. The first Spawn comics were released in the early 90s, and were fairly well-received, just not by mainstream fans.
In 1997, New Line Cinema, in association with Todd McFarlane released a live-action film of the infamous character. The reception to that movie was, shall we say, less than stellar. Personally, I enjoyed it a lot. It had a pretty solid cast which included John Leguizamo as Clown, Martin Sheen as Jason Wynn, and Nicole Williamson as Cogliostro. Leguizamo and Sheen chewed the scenery like it was nobody’s business, and it was fun to watch. Honestly, the real smart casting here was martial arts actor Michael Jai White as Al Simmons. White had the charisma and physicality to match, which made him the perfect fit for the character. The problem? The script was awful and the CGI, especially during the Hell sequences was awful. As a PG-13 movie, Spawn also suffered from not being able to have the dark and violent edge that made the comics so memorable. There is certainly some inventiveness to the visual effects, and the actual Spawn suit is amazing. I like what they did with it. The movie bombed at the box office making only 88 million dollars on a 45 million dollar budget. So, between the box office results and the negative reception to the movie, a sequel just wasn’t going to happen, at least not a direct sequel.
So, I said all that to bring THIS up: According to Superhero Hype, Todd McFarlane has announced that he’s going to try and make a new Spawn film, even without the aid of Hollywood studios. Here’s the problem. McFarlane’s been trying to get a new movie off the ground for over 20 years. The disastrous release of the 1997 film has turned a lot of people away. There have been a lot of different concepts of what the new movie would end up taking. One would focus more on two detectives with Spawn being more of a background force than a main player. The whole reason for making a movie about Spawn, is that we could see what he’s capable of on the big screen. Todd McFarlane wants to make a new Spawn film. Great. Here’s the problem: McFarlane has NO experience directing a movie. The only experience he has as a film-maker is in the writing department. Even then, it’s a very short list. He claims that he has investors willing to help fund his movie. I can’t imagine any investor worth his/her salt that’s going to give an unproven film-maker enough money to resurrect a character that’s been abandoned in the film industry since 1997. I don’t see it happening. Now, making it a low-budget movie is a good idea, and Blumhouse Productions is the best bet for a film of this sort. Their specialty is low-budget movies and they’ve done pretty well. So, I hope that McFarlane and Blumhouse can really work it out, because I’m totally down for a new Spawn. As for who would play Al Simmons: I don’t know if Jamie Foxx is still up for the role. I would honestly like to see Michael Jai White get another shot at the character, despite White not really liking the movie that he was in.
Spawn 2 has had an incredibly rough time getting off the ground. I’ll believe it when I see it. It’s one of those projects that may never see the light of day. Spawn also doesn’t have the kind of following that’s going to make it successful. When most people think of Spawn, they think of either the 1997 movie or the animated HBO series that followed. But the reputation of the 1997 movie is going to very hard to shake. So, will another Spawn movie happen? Honestly, I don’t know. I wouldn’t put money on it, and it’s a shame. Spawn is a very interesting character with some truly memorable villains. But nobody wants this again:
