Jamie Foxx is all set to lead the cast of a new Spawn movie, based on the comic books by Todd McFarlane. Trade bible Deadline firs reported the news late yesterday and say that the new adaptation is set to be similar in tone to 1990’s movie Jacobs Ladder. They also add that McFarlane will direct the feature over at Blumhouse.
The trade adds that the film will see Foxx play Al Simmons, ‘a member of a CIA black ops team who is betrayed twice. After being set up by his cohorts to be murdered with his corpse set aflame, Newman is double crossed in Hell. He is convinced to become a Hellspawn warrior in exchange for being able to be reunited with his wife. But Spawn finds himself stuck in a demonic creature shell, and that his wife moved on and married his best friend. So this is one pissed-off antihero who attends to dispatching the scum of the city in good and evil battles that encompass Earth, Heaven and Hell.’
“The scariest movies, from Jaws to John Carpenter’s The Thing, or The Grudge and The Ring, the boogeyman doesn’t talk,” McFarlane said to Deadline in reference to the tone of the piece. “It confuses people because of the comic book industry, and because they all default into their Captain America mindset and I keep saying, no, get into John Carpenter’s mindset or Hitchcock. This is not a man in a rubber suit, it’s not a hero that’s going to come and save the damsel. It’s none of that.”
The new film is said to be being crafted as an R-rated movie and will be even harder than Deadpool.
It also sounds like Foxx is McFarlane’s only choice for the title role.
“Jamie came to my office five years ago, and he had an idea about Spawn and we talked about it,” McFarlane said. “I never forgot him, and when I was writing this script, you sort of plug people in, and he was my visual guy and I never let go of him. When I got done and my agents and everybody was talking about what actor, I said, I’m going to Jamie first and until he says no I don’t want to think about anyone else because I’ve never had anyone else in my head. Luckily, he hadn’t forgotten either. I said, ‘Hey, I’m back to talk about Spawn again, and he was like, let’s do it.’”
Foxx will next be seen in Lionsgate’s reinvention of Robin Hood in November.
You can read more at the end of the link above. More news as we get it.
