After years spent languishing on the fringes of development, Spawn has exploded into life.
Indeed, casting is now officially underway on Todd McFarlane’s R-rated reboot, which has set up shop at Blumhouse Productions – fitting, really, given it’s been described as a “low-budget” superhero movie with all the horror trappings one would expect from a Blumhouse project.
Story-wise, it’ll mine inspiration from Jaws in that Albert Francis “Al” Simmons will be used sparingly in order to build tension organically, while there’s also been mention of a “big police component” that will, in time, underpin McFarlane’s Spawn movie. And during an exhaustive interview with ComicBook.com, the decorated scribe spoke more about how he envisions Albert Simmons’ next big-screen outing, along with the chances of an uncut version.
I haven’t [thought that far ahead] but I’ll give you my reaction. Those are a lot of movies where they shoot a bunch of stuff and the extras are all the stuff they didn’t use. My brain right now is everything that we’ve got in the script, we’re gonna end up using. If we don’t use it, it will be because the scene wasn’t interesting, or didn’t drive the movie forward for some reason, or didn’t work in the editing bay.
Exactly when can we expect Spawn to take flight, then? A good question that was also posed to Todd McFarlane, who identified two possible release windows for his long-brewing reboot: spring and Halloween.
So, there’s two pockets in making movies and presenting movies. There’s the one that’s like around the Halloween area and again given that it’s going to be a creepy movie that would be the perfect spot. That’s this year. I don’t know if we can get the cast, the movie filmed, in the can and marketed in time for that.
All Hallow’s Eve would naturally be better suited to Spawn, given its emphasis on demonic anti-heroes and hellish landscapes. Failing that, a post-Oscars release is also a possibility, as it’ll allow Blumhouse’s feature to occupy that quiet period between December (Star Wars/Avatar) and the blockbuster rush that typically begins in April.
In closing, here’s what Todd McFarlane had to share:
So I guess what would be the next natural window would be then post-Christmas. So after all the Academy Awards and some of the big movies come out, a lot of the Star Wars stuff, that when there’s a bit of a void like right now in January. I mean Insidious just came out, another Jason Blum movie. January, February, March is a good window and then all the big blockbusters start coming in April.
Assuming Blumhouse rounds up an ensemble cast in the next two-to-three months, perhaps Spawn will slot into the same release window as Hellboy? The latter reboot will be summoned into theaters on January 11th, and we’ll be keeping you right up-to-date as both projects near the finish line.
