AICN's Russ Sheath here!
I’ve interviewed Todd McFarlane a number of times in recent years and almost always the conversation turns to, “When will we see a new Spawn movie?”
This week saw that movie come one step closer to reality as McFarlane, along with producing partner Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions, announced that they had signed multi-talented Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx to play the film’s protagonist ‘Al Simmons’ aka Spawn.
Todd McFarlane’s Spawn had his comic book debut in 1992 when McFarlane co-founded ‘Image Comics’ with six of the hottest artists in the comics industry.
Now home to a myriad of acclaimed independent comics which includes ‘The Walking Dead’, McFarlane’s first Image Comics offering featured the creator owned anti-hero ‘Spawn’.
Spawn became an instant hit when it launched and gave birth to an action figure company (where McFarlane revolutionised the toy industry), an award winning HBO animated series and was the only character by any of the Image founders to make it to the big screen in 1997’s ‘Spawn The Movie’.
This week saw the announcement of Jamie Foxx signing on to star as Al Simmons, a black ops operative who is betrayed and murdered, only to make a faustian deal with the devil at a price he is unprepared for in a movie written and directed by McFarlane himself.
From his Arizona home, Todd McFarlane took time out to talk with AICN's Russ Sheath about signing Foxx, the preparation to direct his first movie and what fans can expect from Spawn.
Russ Sheath (RS): Congratulations on the Spawn news this week. You’ve been teasing announcements and progress with this new movie and now you’ve now landed Jamie Foxx to star in the movie. How does that make you feel?
Todd McFarlane (TM): Any first time director who doesn’t want to take a top flight producer and an academy award winning actor with multiple skills, is crazy. I’m very happy right now.
RS: Landing Jamie Foxx is quite a coup for the movie, right?
TM: Here’s the thing. I’m over fifty now. Back when I was twenty, if they said to me that you’re not going to get a big producer or any big stars to be in this thing, chances are I wouldn’t push back, but now my answer is always the same, “Why not?”
What’s the worst that can happen? That they say “No?”
Maybe its stubbornness on my part but I just go “Let’s ask the big guys!”
The entire time I was working on the script I worked on the premise that we were going to get Jamie Foxx for the role. I was lucky enough that he came out to the offices, we had a great chat and over time I’d hear him mention Spawn in various interviews even when unprompted. That made me believe that we might get Jamie, who was always the guy I had in mind when I was writing the script.
Some people may know Jamie for different reasons, as a musician or as a comedian, but I’ve seen Jamie in plenty of movies where he has this ferocious look and seriousness about him. To me as the director, I’ve already seen what I will need to get out of him and I know he can deliver on this.
RS: In Hollywood, when you land a big name star on a project undoubtedly they seek to revise the script in some way. Does having Jamie Foxx onboard alter your original script or vision for this new version of Spawn?
TM: Not really, not in the tonality of it. Jamie and I have talked about it over the last few weeks and we’ve looked at places where we can push some of the emotional bent of the character and where we can get more value out of certain things, but not to the extent that we have to rewrite a third of the script to get there. Jamie certainly understands where we are going and that we are doing the absolute the best we can in this first movie. There’s a lot of material from a character that’s been around for 27 years and we can’t get it all into this first movie, so lets set the marker with this first one and hopefully create a franchise.
The thing I am most excited about throughout this process. as we are getting closer and closer to production, is that I haven’t had to make any big compromises. I’ve actually got people saying “Ok, if this is what you want to do, how can we help you get there?”
That is really liberating for me.
RS: What is the impact of having a performer of Jamie’s calibre involved in the movie? Presumably it ups the credibility of the production and opens more doors for you?
There’s a portion of the production that doesn’t change one iota, like if the script needs an office or some stairs to be built, none of that changes depending on who the actor is. So there are some disciplines that people will be doing which are not affected.
There are other aspects, such as having an academy award winning multi-talented actor involved, which means that if you are an actor for example, Spawn has become a "legitimate” project to have your talent attached to. We will absolutely get one of the big studios to distribute the movie and subsequently the whole becomes better than the parts, where all these people will band together and create something cool that the public will want to spend ten dollars and two hours of their time to see.
If we can get another big name actor for ‘Twitch’ who is the cop character In the movie, that would be great. What was incredible about this is that after dropping the news about Jamie, within fifteen minutes I had phone calls from two big celebrities saying they wanted to be involved in the project. They weren’t phoning their agents and I’ve no idea how they got my number but they saw the news and wanted to be involved. That was pretty cool.
RS: Who are your directorial influences and whose work might we see channeled into the upcoming movie?
TM: It’s not necessarily a specific director where I’d look to channel their style, but more so I can look to certain movies where I’d go “Wow! I want my movie to look like that”!
The movies are all dramas and they feel ‘real’ to me, where I don’t feel that I’m seeing a set but it feels like a real environment. I don’t necessarily look to see who has directed a movie but more so who the cinematographer or director of photography are. For several movies that I like, quite often it’s been the same guys.
I’ve often said that for Spawn to work, the places I need to spend my money, other than on the casting, is with the cinematographer and with the editor.
RS: Was it always a case that you were going to direct the movie? Was that a deal breaker for you?
TM: Yes, that was a deal breaker. When we were getting close with the script and as I was starting to talk with people I said the deal is I want to write, produce and direct. If any of those give people a moments pause, then we should end the conversation right now.
The other thing is that I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve had other people in Hollywood try to interpret what was in my head at different points and to varying degrees of success, now it's time for me to do it. I’m not saying that I know any better or any worse than anyone else but creatively, I just need to do this myself.
RS: Is that because you’ve got such a clear vision about how you want this movie to be or is it that you’ve got a ‘bucket list’ thing where you want to direct a movie?
TM: Maybe it’s a little bit of the bucket list thing but I’ve directed this movie a thousand times in my head and I’ve just got to get it out. I’ve been living with it for so long.
RS: Is it s a tough process to adapt something that you wrote and created 27 years ago, especially when you are seeking to evolve your original idea?
TM: It may be that people go “That’s kind of different to the comic book.” Especially when the guy leading the charge is the guy who created the comic book.
With all the other super hero ideas that are out there and all the others that haven’t been made into movies yet, here’s the way it works, as an example….
Stan Lee creates Spider-Man and writes it for something like fifty issues.
After those fifty issues somebody else comes on, which in this case was Roy Thomas, and Roy pays homage to the fifty issues that Stan Lee wrote and does that for 50 issues. Then the next writer jumps on and he pays homage to Roy, who is paying homage to Stan and so on. What ends up happening is that everybody is going back and recycling the first four years of stories.
I believe that if Stan Lee was still writing Spider-Man today, Spidey wouldn’t be the same character as I can’t imagine that Stan would have been content with just writing the same stories he wrote for the first four years and to never expand on it.
I’m not picking on Stan Lee, I love Stan. With any creator, if they kept on writing the same character they would have to change something, simply because they’ve gotten older and their personal tastes, interests and sensibilities have changed.
Spawn is twenty seven years old now and I can’t go back and repeat what I did in the first four years of the comic. Spawn has evolved and I want to show some of that evolution in this movie and you want the movie version of the first five issues of the comic book you can rent the 1997 movie.
RS: What’s the next stage for you in the preparation for filming?
TM: The next few steps are the costumes, props as well as more casting. It looks like we have our main location for where we will shoot and we have a couple of key hires. We are going to be doing some storyboarding too.
RS: What are you most excited about or looking forward to?
TM; To get started! I’ve lived with this, talked about it, discussed the theory of it…I just want to start making it because up until now everything we’ve done has been theoretical.
RS: You also have another of your creations headed to the big screen soon as you co-created Marvel’s ‘Venom’, where the upcoming movie is starring Tom Hardy.
TM; The hope is that the Venom movie blows up and is a big success. That way movie goers who don’t know comics, go “Oh, there’s a new movie by the guy who helped create Venom, that’s cool, we’ll go check that out”. I’ve got my fingers crossed that it will be a success.
So there you have it. A huge thanks to Todd for his time. I’m really excited to see how Todd McFarlane’s vision for this new incarnation of Spawn turns out and we’ll certainly keep you posted with more from Todd and the production, as it evolves.
For more McFarlane and Spawn movie, comic and toy news follow Todd McFarlane on twitter @todd_mcfarlane
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