Entertainment News

Spawn movie remake officially resurrected with Get Out producer

Comic creator Todd McFarlane will make his directorial debut

By NICK ROMANO@NICKAROMANO

IMAGE COMICS

Spawn will officially live again.

In the 20 years since the first Mark A.Z. Dippé-directed film premiered in 1997, comic book creator Todd McFarlane has been trying to get a new take on the brooding supernatural superhero on the silver screen. Now, it’s finally happening, thanks to Blumhouse Productions.

Jason Blum heads the production company behind films like Get Out, The Purge, and Split, and now he’s aboard the Spawn remake. McFarlane, who already wrote the first draft of the screenplay and is set to direct the film, teased a countdown to the big announcement on his Facebook page in the thick of San Diego Comic-Con.

It’s a great time to be a part of Blumhouse Productions. The company, which got its start producing low-budget but successful horror films like the Paranormal Activity franchise, Insidious, and Sinister, is now a formidable force in Hollywood. Get Out, one of its latest releases directed and written by Jordan Peele, earned an unprecedented $252.4 million at the box office off a $4.5 million production budget.

“Having worked with many visionary directors, I think Todd’s unique artistic talents will only add to his role as director of this film,” Blum said in a statement on Spawn.

“Basically, I can make this version of the movie on a budget without crazy special effects,” McFarlane said in an interview last year.

The titular character was once a man named Al Simmons, a U.S. soldier and assassin executed by his own men. Through a Faustian deal, he returns from death as a Hellspawn, a demonic soldier from Hell.

Describing this new cinematic take as more of a “boogeyman,” McFarlane added, “He’s this thing that just whooshes in, this ghost that moves and will f— you up if you’re in the wrong place in the wrong time, and the rest of the movie will look real, and be this real drama. He’s just this ghost, this thing behind it.”