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Todd McFarlane Confirms February Start For “Dark, R-Rated” ‘Spawn’; Pledges Daily Facebook Updates – Comic Con

Todd McFarlane, Spawn creator and director of the upcoming feature film version, pledged at New York Comic Con today to post daily Facebook updates during filming to chronicle the day-in-day-out goings-on of life on the set.

And he promised that Spawn, which will go into pre-production after Christmas for a February production start, will be “dark and R-rated,” and not R-rated like Deadpool “with a couple F-bombs and a couple bare asses.”

“It’s going to be dark,” McFarlane said, explaining that Spawn won’t be a standard superhero movie and its darkness will spring from a realistic drama that will play on fear. “I will have a shark in black water,” he said metaphorically, “and if you’re swimming he will come and you’ll be gone and he will f*ck you up.”

McFarlane spoke about his love of dark drama – “Gorky Park over Star Wars” – and how the best supernatural thrillers contain one fantastical element set in an otherwise realistic environment. “John Carpenter’s The Thing minus the Thing is about dudes holed up in the North.”

The comic book vet dropped a couple non-Spawn (and vague) hints – he and Kevin Smith met yesterday with AMC about their Sam and Twitch series; he recently sold a script to Showtime that won’t be announced for five or six months, and his McFarlane Toys just landed a deal for a Stranger Things line – but most of the talk was about Spawn.

McFarlane completed the script for the new Spawn last year before joining up with Jason Blum’s production company Blumhouse on the project.

McFarlane said today that pre-production is expected to start just after Christmas, with production to begin in February. While Blum has a first-look deal at Universal, McFarlane does not – meaning, he said, that Universal is likely to “take it” but he wouldn’t rule out other studios.

“The only things we need from them,” he said, “are distribution and marketing. We don’t need your input, we don’t need your cash, we don’t need your creativity – and they don’t like those deals. They always want the budget to go up because then they have to put money in it and then they own it.”

McFarlane said the budget for Spawn will be $10 million, and that his financial control of the project allows for a couple perks – like getting to share on-set tidbits with Facebook fans (which studios, he said, would frown on) and that he gets to direct his first movie.

Asked by an audience member why he’s so confident he can direct a movie, McFarlane said, “I didn’t use to draw comic books and I drew comic books and I won awards. I don’t know how to read music and I have a Grammy Award.

“I’m spending my own money so who cares if it doesn’t work out. It’s a $10 million budget movie, and (a studio) would just get a 22-year-old punk director. I just want to be the old punk directing it.”

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

There was an exhaustive list of every single possible event, situation, and character permutation that anyone could think of and all of them had already been done in actual comics except for one: Transgender Spider-Man.

The MSJ posted:

Not really transgender, but Ultimate Spider-Woman was a gender-swapped clone of Ultimate Peter Parker.

teagone posted:

Today I learned Todd McFarlane has a Grammy.

Dark_Tzitzimine posted:

Flawless logic.

teagone posted:

Today I learned Todd McFarlane has a Grammy.

teagone posted:

Today I learned Todd McFarlane has a Grammy.

BiggerBoat posted:

Punisher is fine as a character, was great in DD and makes perfect sense the way he's written. I can understand why Marvel backed off but just saying "he sucks" or arbitrarily changing his race seems kinda silly.

Although I have to admit I wonder how many bikers and wannabe tough guys would sport Punisher t-shirts & trick out their Harleys with skull logos and poo poo if the he wasn't white.

BiggerBoat posted:

Punisher is fine as a character, was great in DD and makes perfect sense the way he's written. I can understand why Marvel backed off but just saying "he sucks" or arbitrarily changing his race seems kinda silly.

Although I have to admit I wonder how many bikers and wannabe tough guys would sport Punisher t-shirts & trick out their Harleys with skull logos and poo poo if the he wasn't white.

LORD OF BOOTY posted:

Yeah, I think the MCU Punisher is fine, but the comics absolutely need to play with this a little.

SolidSnakesBandana posted:

There's a non-white Ghost Rider in Agents of Shield. I imagine tough guys and bikers probably like Ghost Rider too.

Burkion posted:

He's not the real Ghost Rider, even in the context of the show.


And by that I mean he has a car, so he's a Ghost Driver. But Ghost Driver sounds more like some hosed up sequel to Ghost Dad.

Burkion posted:

He's not the real Ghost Rider, even in the context of the show.


And by that I mean he has a car, so he's a Ghost Driver. But Ghost Driver sounds more like some hosed up sequel to Ghost Dad.

Schwarzwald posted:

Ghost Rider and Ghost Chauffeur

achillesforever6 posted:

Just have him kill corrupt cops and PMCs

Halloween Jack posted:

I'm gonna tentatively say that the guy who lives down the road from me, whose truck is decorated with a MAGA flag, a Thin Blue Line Flag, several Confederate flag stickers, and TRIGGERED? in block letters across the back window...would take off the American Flag Punisher sticker if that happened.

Inescapable Duck posted:

I can't be arsed finding a pic, but the comics have occasionally had it canon that the Ghost Rider can be the driver, rider, or crew of any vehicle or mount, which includes trucks, tanks and elephants.

Detective Dog Dick posted:

achillesforever6 posted:

Just have him kill corrupt cops and PMCs instead of street level petty criminals

SolidSnakesBandana posted:

There are some really, really hosed up Punisher comics out there. Like, graphic incest levels of hosed up. I don't feel like looking up the details but I vaguely recall someone loving his Aunt or something. In the same comic a mobster sucks another mobsters dick for some reason.

achillesforever6 posted:

Just have him kill corrupt cops and PMCs instead of street level petty criminals

Davros1 posted:

"Up is Down, Black is White" where insane gangster Nicky Cavella demands control of all the New York mafia families in exchange for taking out the Frank. His plan involves what he believe will drive Frank insane, leading him to make a mistake that will result in his death.

Cavella digs up the remains of Frank's family and films himself pissing on them.

This does not go well for Cavella or the rest of the mafia.

SleepCousinDeath posted:

Nic Cage Ghost Rides a Bagger 288 in the second movie, so it's definitely canon.