Todd McFarlane Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Now that our Superhero Tournament is nearing the home stretch, I've been looking at some of the 'losers' and thinking about all the costumed heroes that have fallen by the wayside over the years. But then I remembered that reboot fever is alive and well in Hollywood, and the latest victim is Todd McFarlane, who's apparently working on a new Spawn script according to various reports. (But isn't he always working on a new Spawn script?)

Considering how beloved Spawn is in the world of comic books, it really is a shame that he wound up with such a crappy movie -- and if the Rotten Tomatoes rating is any indication, time has not improved this flick in the eyes of fans. Luckily for us then that McFarlane will be starting from scratch, and by the sounds of things, thankfully, there will be far fewer fart jokes. McFarlane told Coming Soon's sources, "The story has been in my head for 7 or 8 years. The movie idea is neither a recap or continuation. It is a standalone story that will be R-rated. Creepy and scary."

McFarlane has only just started writing, so it could be some time before we see a finished product -- but, when we do, it's going to be a brand new Spawn. McFarlane told CS, "the tone of this 'Spawn' movie will be for a more older audience. Like the film 'Departed.'" Okay, that might be a bit of a strange comparison, but then again, I'm all for taking superheroes a little more seriously.

After the jump: the five 'masked avengers' I think deserved better on the big screen...

Oz (as in The Wizard of) is just so hot right now. We already know about the Oz re-imagining in the works where DG (Dorothy) gets swept off to The Outer Zone and goes on a journey with some weird creatures. Now we're going to see another update of Oz in a feature film. Variety has reported that Warner Brothers and Village Roadshow Pictures are teaming up for a flick called Oz -- not based on that sparkly classic film, but directly from L. Frank Baum's books. Well, not directly, but a "revisionist take."

The idea comes from Spawn creator Todd McFarlane, and was expanded on and pitched by Josh Olson, who adapted A History of Violence. McFarlane is also the guy behind the "Twisted Land of Oz" figurine series, featuring Dorothy barely-clothed and awkwardly bound while a creepy Munchkin snarls. Before you think of an S&M Oz, Olson has said: "I saw those toys, and Dorothy as some bondage queen isn't something I want to do." McFarlane says: "My pitch was 'How do we get people who went to Lord of the Rings to embrace this?' I want to create (an interpretation) that has a 2007 wow factor. You've still got Dorothy trapped in an odd place, but she's much closer to the Ripley from Alien than a helpless singing girl."

While the plot is being kept under wraps so far, Olson describes it as a remake and says that while a lot of the characters are "all Baum," the plot is mostly his. It'll be interesting to see how the over-sexualized Oz eye of McFarlane and Olson's PG-plan come together. Will it be a mess, a masterpiece or something in between?

Yes, we've had similar headlines before. The first time we heard from Todd McFarlane about a second Spawn movie was in 2005. Then we heard again from him in 2006. It's now 2007 -- has been for awhile -- and it's time to hear from McFarlane again -- just in time for Comic-Con (ponder all this new info while waiting in those long lines). Now, I make no secret about my disappointment and hatred for the first Spawn adaptation (especially the bad special effects), but this new interview with MTV has me really intrigued about the sequel or reboot or whatever he wants to call it.

First of all, let me point out that we've already heard the strange idea that in Spawn 2 the title character will not talk. We also already heard McFarlane cite Jaws (as well as Frankenstein and King Kong) as how the movie will play out. But there are a lot of new bits in MTV's interview. One is that McFarlane, who has now begun the screenplay, failed to get a studio interested -- he tried again with New Line and then with Sony -- and so he is doing the thing independently. He even calls it his "Passion of the Anti-Christ" after Mel Gibson's passion project. Apparently nobody in Hollywood wants an R-rated adaptation of such a popular comic book in which the 'superhero' doesn't talk, and he isn't even a superhero. McFarlane says that not only will Spawn be silent, we won't even see his costume or cape because he'll always be in the shadows.

We fans of the comic will get some "wink-wink" stuff in the movie, but otherwise it is a new movie for people unfamiliar with the character. There is no origin or Al Simmons at all. Basically it's just a spooky horror movie for kids like his daughter. But it will be more real, according to McFarlane. He says the style will be more Crash than 300 and that the story will be like L.A. Confidential or The Godfather with "this little boogeyman in it -- a moving shadow." Hmm. I can't wait to see the end result, because that sounds both brilliant and stupid at the same time.

Comics Continuum has put together great roundup of Todd McFarlane's panel appearance this weekend at New York's Comic-Con. Though the talk was wide-ranging, McFarlane spoke extensively about his upcoming movie projects, including both David Fincher's Torso (which McFarlane is producing) and a second Spawn film. Among other things, McFarlane confirmed that Torso is a long way off - when he finishes Zodiac, Fincher will go to work on another project (presumably Benjamin Button); after that wraps is the earliest Torso could get off the ground.

When it came to the new Spawn project, though, McFarlane spoke optimistically about starting production before the end of the year, and having the film in theaters by 2007. He's currently finishing up the script, which is less a sequel than a completely new story, focusing on the character of Twitch. Said McFarlane, "Spawn doesn't utter a word in this film. The guy will all the speaking parts is Twitch." Though the film is not yet associated with a studio, McFarlane (who will be making his directorial debut with the project) assured listeners that he has several interested studios, and that a deal will be done once the screenplay is finalized. With an expected budget of less than $10 million, the director envisions the film as very different from the original, which cost four times that amount. Instead of worrying much about effects, he hopes for something more simple: "a gritty, dark, scary, creepy movie."

Like a lot of other people, we were pretty dern excited to hear the news last week that David Fincher was going to undertake a screen version of Torso, a graphic novel about Eliot Ness battling a killer in Cleveland. Though it's going to be a while before this one hits the screen, IESB sat down with producer Todd McFarlane and managed to get a few new details out of him.

• Though Torso takes place after that whole capturing Capone thing, Ness is still in his mid-30s when he goes to Cleveland, so the ideal actor for the role is younger than we might expect. McFarlane says that a vague "they" are leaning towards Matt Damon for the role, and also mentions Leonardo DiCaprio as someone who "sort of fits [the] bill."

• Fincher's original thought (before the release and success of Sin City) was that the film would be shot in black and white.

• As far as a timeline goes, McFarlane hopes that the script will be done (meaning all the rewrites and drafts) by the time Fincher finished Zodiac. That way, if Benjamin Button (the director's next scheduled project) stalls in preproduction, Torso will be ready to go.

• McFarlane hems and haws a lot about the film's fidelity to the graphic novel, but in the end it sounds possible that only the main points of the story will be the same. (No kidding. Seeing as how it's a true story, that's not much of a shock.)

• Assuming a big star is landed to play Ness, the budget will be at least $65 million.

[via JoBlo]