Todd McFarlane says his 'Spawn' movie will be "dark and ugly".
Todd McFarlane
The 57-year-old comic book creator is bringing his Image Comics character to the big screen in what will be his directorial debut and McFarlane has vowed that he will not be making the demonic titular character lighter for the big screen like the films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
In an interview with website Nerdist, he said: "There's no joy. There's gonna be no fun lines in it, and it's just gonna be this dark, ugly two hours' worth of movie, which is essentially what a lot of supernatural/horror movies are anyway. There's not a lot of funny in them. And that seems to be a weird hurdle for a lot of people in this city to get over because they sort of go into a superhero/Avengers default all the time."
Jamie Foxx has been cast as main character AI Simmons, a CIA black ops soldier who is murdered by his own friend and partner and then when he is sent to hell makes a deal with evil being Malebolgia to become a Hellspawn warrior so that he can return to Earth and see his wife. But he's left devastated when he finds out the love of his life has moved on and married his best friend and he is stuck in the body of a demon.
Spawn then embarks on a battle against lowlifes residing on Earth, Heaven and Hell.
Jeremy Renner - who plays superhero Hawkeye in the 'Avengers' films - will also star in the Blumhouse movie as Detective Maximilian 'Twitch' Williams who becomes aware of Spawn's activities.
Discussing the motivation behind the castings, McFarlane previously said: "As a first-time director, I wanted to surround myself with the most talent and the most skilled people I can on all fronts. I was lucky enough to land [producer] Jason Blum and then Jamie Foxx, and I knew the person on screen the most is this police officer, Twitch' Williams. We needed as strong a person as possible because he will be the face of the film.
"I took my naive Hollywood approach again, and said let's start at the top and work down. Jeremy was at the top. I'm a huge fan of his."
There is no official release date for the 'Spawn' film but it is hoped it will be in cinemas before the end of the year.
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