Todd McFarlane updates Spawn reboot, compares it to a low-budget Jaws & Alien

Last Updated on July 23, 2021

March of 2010 was the last time we heard from Todd Mcfarlane, author of SPAWN the comic book, which saw big-screen adaptation from Mark A.Z. Dippe in 1997. In our last article, McFarlane was explaining how we saw a low-budget SPAWN reboot (sequel) as the absolute best way to go. Almost a year later, dude’s beating the same old drum. Peep it…

Speaking with The L.A. Times, McFarlane had a lot to say about a newfangled SPAWN. Let’s just dive right into it:

“One of the things that happened is after the first movie came out I started the toy company and sort of got distracted. But these days, as you might imagine, with the [Hollywood] success of Batman and Spider-Man and some of the Marvel titles, everybody’s on a comic-book buying binge and the phone constantly rings. My attitude toward it is I can’t get my head wrapped around some big special-effects movie with a super-villain in there.

There will be plenty of those and they’ve done pretty well. I’ve always seen Spawn as being cut from a different cloth. It’s more of an urban, psychological story that’s being told. The answer I’ve given the last few years is that Spawn should be a small-budget movie in which the only thing that’s out of the ordinary is this thing that intellectually we know as Spawn and there would only be a handful of people that see it. I call it “it” because it never talks, it’s just a force of nature. Really, the story revolves around the people who are trying to decide: “Is the ghost alive? Is the shadow actually moving?” When I give that pitch, some of the executives scratch their heads. To a lot of people, a movie where the [title] character doesn’t talk doesn’t make any sense. There have been a few movies like that. “Alien,” you know, that guy didn’t say much. Or ” Jaws,” the shark didn’t have too many speaking lines. “Jaws” is the closest example, the movie wasn’t about the shark, it’s about the people chasing the shark.”

He continued:

“The idea I pitch is that the movie shouldn’t be about superheroes and laser beams – it’s about the id of people and the group of people caught up in the story and seeing things out of the corner of their eye. And when I give the pitch, I also say that I will write and direct it. There’s the nonnegotiable pieces of it. Then I have four suitors who say, “Yeah, cool, when do we start?” It means we’re not looking for a $20-million actor and we’re not looking for a big-budget extravaganza with lots of special effects. The story that I pitch is very tight, very contained, but done right.

I want a movie that gets people’s hearts racing. I want to scare them. Spawn, done right, is a creepy character. Instead of a superhero who just stands there. That’s why Batman was always the coolest of all the good guys. I never had one moment of affinity for [Superman]. He was a Boy Scout right from the moment he hit the ground. He was always polite and said the right thing.

I never felt like he was in danger because he could spin planets on his finger. Batman is a guy who could die if you threw him out of a window. More than that, even though he had women throwing themselves at him and millions of dollars, all he wanted to do was to wait until 3 a.m. and the pitch of black and say, “time to put the costume on and scare the bad guys.” I relate way more to that guy. Spawn is Batman untethered, without the corporation behind it. Batman without limits, Batman who kills the Joker.”

Dude’s got some pretty interesting ideas floating around in the ol’ noggin, ay? Which parts, if any, do you agree with? Disagree with?