Todd MacFarlane, genius marketer, promises there will be "no joy" in his Spawn reboot
Aux Features SpawnThe “dark” superhero movie feels like the next evolution in Hollywood’s most pervasive modern genre, especially in the wake of Logan’s acclaim. Now, with Zack Snyder’s DC duds having set the template for how not to do it, a few forthcoming films are hoping to blaze the trail, whether it be Josh Boone’s horror spin on The New Mutants, Neil Marshall’s Hellboy, or even M. Night Shyamalan’s Split and Unbreakable crossover Glass. Add Blumhouse’s long-in-the-works Spawn reboot to that list, as creator, director, and screenwriter Todd McFarlane says “there’s no joy” in his new adaptation.
“There’s no joy,” McFarlane told Nerdist in a new interview, probably while wearing pitch-black contact lenses. “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.”
McFarlane previously said the movie would have a “dark R” rating, and he name-checked flicks like The Thing and The Ring when discussing how Jamie Foxx’s turn as the titular character wouldn’t feature much dialogue. The material certainly suits the approach, but the “no joy” tactic is a curious one, what with joy being, at least by our definition, a subjective emotion.
Spawn is currently in pre-production.
69 Comments
NO FUN NO CORE NO MOSH NO TRENDS
He’s not down with that Hopepunk shit Vox has been shoveling.
Oh god, that was some shit, wasn’t it? The gall of using the righteously furious Angels in America as an example of the hopefulness and fighting back at all costs was crazy.
“Hopepunk says that genuinely and sincerely caring about something, anything, requires bravery and strength. Hopepunk isn’t ever about submission or acceptance: It’s about standing up and fighting for what you believe in.”
That whole first sentence is some nonsense, and the whole thing emphasizes beliefs in principles as the important thing, not that the principles themselves are moral and upright.
Exactly.“Hopepunk” sounds like something dreamed up by a Proudboy.
“Hopepunk” sounds like something dreamed up by a Proudboy.It’s the opposite. The term was invented by “SJW” fantasy and comics fans to describe stuff like the works of Terry Pratchett. There’s a whole lot of cynicism and pessimism and rage in his stories, but it’s expressed with humour and powered by a belief in justice and the better angels of our nature. Hope positioned not as some wishy-washy, high-minded abstract, but an act of furious defiance against the shittier parts of life.I don’t know how Vox has been describing or pushing it, but that’s what it’s supposed to be.
Yes.But it still sounds stupid. It’s supposed to be a contrary position to “grimdark” depictions in sci-fi and fantasy.Something most people take as momentary entertainment and not as any sort of philosophical position. Because most people don’t engage with all that in the same way as a few vocal and web present nerd types. It’s like taking an expression out of high academia meant as a contrary position in a specialized field of study by its savants and making that out to be universal.
It’s supposed to be a contrary position to “grimdark” depictions in sci-fi and fantasy.Something most people take as momentary entertainment and not as any sort of philosophical position.You sound like you’ve never actually met a nerd.
That entire “hopepunk” article is essentially Aja Romano regurgitating what she learned from a Tumblr post she skimmed (poorly) and trying to retrofit works like Star Trek and Children of Men into a movement that doesn’t properly exist.
Austin Walker from Waypoint does a fantastic and entirely undeserved dismantling of the piece and especially of the bit you quoted. Hell, even the author of the Tumblr post Romano lifted her editorial from did one.By the way, it’s fucking depressing that people I legitimately like reading, like Abad-Santos and Van der Werff, have to share the culture office at Vox with someone like Romano, who literally owes her career to piggybacking on causes (like the time she did on Zoe Quinn’s).
If you want a hopeful variant of the various punks, you could try Solarpunk, which emphasises green technology and sustainable anti-capitalism without being as vague and amorphous as “hope”.
Huh…never heard that neologism before. It seems kind of a broad catch-all, but it does remind me a bit of the shift from dystopic Cyberpunk to the more hopeful Post-Cyberpunk movement (started more or less with Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age). That said, I guess it is kind of hard to do a light take on Spawn so I guess run with it, Todd. Maybe you can start making money on those Spawn collectibles again.
“started more or less with Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age”…how? Diamond Age was a fucking horror novel with some occasional tidbits of parenting advice sprinkled throughout.
https://news.slashdot.org/story/99/10/08/2123255/notes-toward-a-postcyberpunk-manifesto
That does very little to counter my assertion. Perhaps you need to read the book again.
I have read it several times, but my last reading was quite some time ago, so you may be right. My original point, however, wasn’t that the world of The Diamond Age was a utopia—shit’s still pretty bad—but that it was moving away from the cynical techno-dystopia of typical cyberpunk, even if only by degrees.
I’m not even going to look that up because it sounds completely stupid and having it come from Vox, doesn’t help my opinion get better.
Okay I had to google this and…
Some Vox blogger actually tried to pawn a two sentence Tumblr post as a new #resistance literary genre.
That is the dorkiest shit. Exactly what I’d expect from someone who derives all their ideals from children’s literature.
Oh good, he already knows how we are going to react to it.
I’m hopeful it’s better than the original yeah? Though I suppose that’s not saying too much….
The opposite of light
Black hole
Curtains drawn
In the basement
Every new bit of information he releases makes me less interested. But I’m still hopeful that when the movie is released, 8th grade me will travel through some kind of time warp so he can love it
i really wish anyone else was directing this movie.
Todd MacFarlane is a savvy businessman and doesn’t get enough credit for how influential his art has been or how well it’s held up in the decades since compared to most of his contemporaries. That said, he has always been a bad storyteller and if anything he’s gotten worse over time as he’s been coasting on his success in other areas
He’s also an asshole who tried to cheat Neil Gaiman out of his ownership of Angela and Cagliostro.Though on the plus side, that lawsuit did lead to Marvel 1606, Angela being retconned into the Marvel Universe out what was surely sheer spite, and the reprinting of Miracleman books from the 80’s.
I just looked that up and, WOW, what a fucking dickbag MacFarlane is.
He did, and Gaiman ended up winning in court which was a good decision. But from what I understand, this was a dispute arising from a poorly written contract and opposing expectations, it seems like he assumed the position that was most beneficial to his company and Gaiman assumed the one that was most beneficial to him as an artist, and the courts made a ruling. In hindsight, he obviously should have just paid Gaiman whatever to buy the characters (from a business perspective and from the perspective of “Spawn is a boring character ot the point that he is a literal cadaver and most of his remaining supporting cast are shallow and dated stock characters”)McFarlane also gave us Image comics, regardless of personal feelings about the guy that’s a lot of great comics like Saga and Monstress that may not have ever seen the light of day otherwise
“doesn’t get enough credit for how influential his art has been or how well it’s held up in the decades since compared to most of his contemporaries”Mostly Jim Lee’s fault.
If by “art” you mean strictly his drawing, then yes, totally agree. Still one of my faves from his Spider-man to Batman. But if by “art” you mean his artistic merits as a comic/TV/movie creator on the whole… BLEAH.
He’s also a tacky piece of shit
Todd MacFarlane is a hypocritical douchebag who screwed over Neil Gaiman for literally the exact reason MacFarlane co-created Image for in the first place.
“I hate the fascist studio system so much that I will create my own fascist studio system!”
When I read the last page of Spawn #10 I roll my eyes and make a jerk-off motion.
Thank God, MacFarlane is going to put a stop to the plague that is Whedonspeak. Spawn is no place for middle-aged tween banter.
“There will also be a graphic novel tie-in. Every page will give you a tiny paper cut. That is my promise to you, the fans.”
It will come with little packets of lemon juice, to enhance the pleas…I mean misery.
The “dark” superhero movie feels like the next evolution in Hollywood’s most pervasive modern genre, especially in the wake of Logan’s acclaim. Yeah, it worked out so well for Batman v. Superman: Yawn of Justice.
The difference being that Spawn is a more appropriate choice for a “dark” take than friggin’ Superman.
it also, like, already happened. people were saying that back when the nolan movies were coming out.
BvS being a yawn or not, the beating of the dead horse (bat?) that has followed has been absolutely stultifying.
Because people really loved the joy-less BvS
Superman is supposed to be bright and heroic. That is why it didn’t work.Spawn is all dark all the time. I mean holy shit, that is the one film that should be dark as fuck.
If this Spawn movie every comes to fruition, it’ll probably bomb hard, but I still want to point out a big flaw in your logic.
No one wants a joy-less Superman. Superman, at his core, personifies hope.Spawn, meanwhile, borders on horror. It’s Faust as a superhero.
Spawn, meanwhile, borders on horror. It’s Faust as a superhero.
Yes and no, Spawn the character is pretty joyless and rather beaten down individual. Yet his world is inhabited by things like Violator, which chooses a clown body when on earth. Angela an angelic bounty hunter in what can only be described as the most useless armor ever. Overt-Kill, the strangest cyborg assassin ever committed to comics. So I agree about Spawn but his world is insane and while it can be bleak its still unique and worth a random chuckle. This movie will bomb hard though because unless something changes its supposed to be very grounded gritty take where Spawn is a background character who is basically a shadow killing people and the main characters, Sam and Twitch investigate said crimes. Its basically a Sam and Twitch movie because the world has been clamoring for that.
I would argue that its hard to bomb when your budget is 10 million
S to the P to the A to the AWWWWWN S to the P to the A to the AWWWWN
This isn’t true when this movie bombs I’ll feel quite happy.
The 90s called. It wants its suck back.
Why isn’t he teaming up with Seth Macfarlane for “Spawn of Family Guy”?
At Comic-Con a few years ago, I had a brief conversation with Todd MacFarlane while riding in an elevator. I recognized him, was surprised to see nobody else had done so, and we discussed how the con had changed. He wasn’t bitter about that, and later I realized it was probably an insult to suggest he was no longer being mobbed, but he took that in stride, not at all joyless, albeit a bit stoic about the changing times.I guess that wore off.
I will say that, having recently watched a few episodes of the HBO adaptation, I have rarely wanted to punch someone in the face more than I wanted to punch Todd MacFarlane in the face during his episode introduction segments.
“And noww here’s Spawwn, so turn off da lights.” And I was out of there.
I’m so bored with the grim and dark superhero.Bored bored bored.I didn’t care for “Deadpool” but was glad to have SOMETHING different after years of refried reboot “Batman” rip off super hero movies.All that angsty shit is fine if you’re some emo type but having the grim leavened with some humor or romance or anything, is what makes the horror of situations so much more visceral.
Logan came out forever ago and changed literally nothing. It was a solid movie but nothing came as a result of it.
Everyone will have a constant grimace the whole film.
Worked for Dredd.
How can you see into my eyes like open doors?
Leading you down, into my core
Where I’ve become so numb, without a soul
My spirit’s sleeping somewhere cold
Until you find it there, and lead it, back, home- Evanescence “Wake me up inside”
I really hope the soundtrack is another batch of metal songs remixed by EDM guys. Most of Spawn: The Album was a trainwreck, but it had some gems.
The most important and lasting contribution from Todd MacFarlane was “Spaghetti” webs for Spider-Man. Almost every comic artist draws them his way today.Spawn as a comic, time has not been kind too. Having read the first couple of issues again a couple of years ago. It’s design and layout remind me so much of Dark Knight Returns (right down to the talking heads from the newscasts). Also Todd MacFarlane was not a prolific artist once he helped start Image. We are lucky to get a page out of him every 2 years. At this point I have more respect for Leifeld, because he is still working and hasn’t taken himself so seriously.
Whatever. Will this make my 10 copies of Spawn #1 go up or can my mom finally throw those out of the closet at home?
I cannot wait to not see this, ever.
McFarlane previously said the movie would have a “dark R” ratingR for “Rejected, by all audiences.”
They already made a joy-less Spawn movie. I’ve heard after watching it, people were unable to feel joy for months after.
Oh woah, a gritty superhero movie? How’d they come up with that gem?
The only important question about this film is can’t it, can’t it trip like I do?
I love how this site has had a ton of articles being like “turns out zack Snyder is awesome, aquaman stands up for zack Snyder vision, man of steel didn’t suck as bad as people remember.” It’s been commonly agreed that batman v Superman is far improved in the directors cut, the theatrical version sucking because of studio meddling. and that justice league was a terrible movie because of the same meddling, and dropping zack Snyder for joss whedon.”And then you come in here ignoring all of that and just being like “yup, zack snyder’s dud. Everyone knows zack Snyder is the worst and ruined DC”gtfo.
Is anyone still reading Spawn? Didn’t the whole Spawn thing burn itself out and down in the 90’s only? The movie also didn’t make any waves.
Yep, It’s pretty much guaranteed no one will enjoy watching this movie.
…people in this city…The bitter stuffiness of these four words alone make ol’ hot Toddy a hard pass for me.