Todd McFarlane is tired of all the runarounds he’s been getting from Hollywood regarding his Spawn film franchise. It’s been awhile since the first Spawn movie, but McFarlane hasn’t forgotten about his most popular creation.
McFarlane has never been shy about his Spawn 2 plans. Last year he announced he was working on a ‘darker, grittier, scarier’ script for the next Spawn movie. Apparently three smaller Hollywood studios are interested in the project, but McFarlane wasn’t naming any names.
“All the small guys go ‘that thing [First Spawn film] opened up to $20 million last time!’ We could do a talking head [indie movie] for 8-9 million bucks or we can add an extra million to the budget and make a Spawn movie? Rock and Roll!”
McFarlane spoke to Newsarama about his Spawn 2 plan while in New York City recently to promote his McFarlane Toys 2010 product line at Toy Fair.
“I’ve had the idea in my head for over 10 years and I want to write, produce and direct it and just go, ‘here it is.’ I’m 80% through the script, I did my due diligence, went around Hollywood, listened to the pitches from all the big studios, but I just went, ‘nah, I need to make this small and tight and contained. At this point in my life, I’d rather keep it smaller and maybe get fewer people to come see it, but actually just sort of extract out of my brain what I’ve been living with for the past 10 years.”
Of course it’s not like he’s just sitting around twiddling his thumbs waiting for the next Spawn movie to get made. At Toy Fair 2010 his toy company, McFarlane Toys, unveiled upcoming figures based on the forthcoming Halo: Reach, new editions of its popular pro sports action figure lines, and toys and props linked to Disney’s summer flick Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
The Arizona native is also giving comic fans much to be excited about. He has been busy inking Haunt, the book he co-created with Robert Kirkman, as well as his original Image creation, Spawn. And although he’s been too busy to do more than just guest-pencil the occasional issue or cover (Spawn #200, out February 24), you can tell he misses the action.
“It has been fun, but the [big difference] is that when I used to do it on a regular basis, that was my only job,” he said, adding that it’s tough to find time for creative work “and run the corporations at the same time. I’ve got three kids now, so I’ve been trying to figure out how to do all that and still spend time with my wife and sleep. I believe that once my 15 minutes of fame goes away and my life winds down, I’ll probably return to comic books. Not because I need to make money, not because I want to be famous… just because I enjoy drawing.”
I’ve always been a big McFarlane fan in all aspects of his many ventures and I’m looking forward to a new Spawn film. Anything to replace the taste of the first one. What do you think?
