Unnecessary remakes: ‘Spawn’ movie reboot starring Jamie Foxx happening?

Remember Spawn? The demonic comic book superhero from creator Todd McFarlane was all the rage back in the 1990s, spawning countless action figures, spin-offs, a 1997 feature film adaptation, and even an ultraviolent HBO animated miniseries. The "Spawn" comic book and movie told the story of CIA assassin Al Simmons, who is betrayed and murdered by his superiors, sent to hell and agrees to lead the armies of the underworld against Earth as long as he is allowed to see his wife one last time.

But nothing lasts forever – especially in the comics business. McFarlane’s once iconic character faded from view in the 21st century, and save for a few video game appearances in 2003, has been relegated to comic book pages for the past decade. The reason for the character’s fall from prominence is quite simple: as the tastes of comic readers changed and matured, “Spawn” did neither. The “Spawn” series exemplified everything wrong with comic books in the 90s -- things like ridiculously big guns, impossibly proportioned people (particularly women), and gratuitous, oft-times sadistic violence. Consumers simply wanted something else.

This is partly what makes news that another “Spawn” movie is in development a little perplexing. How exactly does one make a movie about a comic book character so radically out of step with modern comic book characters? Creator Todd McFarlane doesn’t seem to have an answer for that right now, but speaking with MTV Geek at last week’s Toy Fair in New York City, the Calgary, Alta.-born comic creator said that plans for a new “Spawn” movie are moving forward slowly but surely.

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"I continue to write a page here and there,” McFarlane said, referring to the status of the film’s screenplay. The “Spawn” creator also said he’s facing pressure from an unnamed actor who has allegedly agreed to star in the film. “As I’ve said before, I’ve got a guy waiting on the sidelines who is an Academy Award-winning actor, who phones every three weeks going ‘Todd, where’s the script? Where’s the script?!’”

So, who is the actor? Since Spawn’s alter ego Al Simmons is an African American character, and because he was previously played by a black actor (Michael Jai White in 1997’s “Spawn”), it’s not a stretch to assume that the Oscar winner McFarlane is referring to is also African American. The pool of Oscar winning black actors is quite small, which narrows the list of possibilities a great deal. The only Academy Award-winning actor of an age to play Simmons/Spawn would be “Django Unchained” star Jamie Foxx (who won the Best Actor prize for his turn as Ray Charles in 2004’s “Ray”).

“He came out to the office, he gave me his pitch, I gave him my pitch, and he’s like ‘Fine, let’s do your gig,’” McFarlane said, recalling his meeting with the actor assumed to be Foxx.

Foxx or not, this is still "Spawn" we're talking about here. Despite being very faithful to the source material and sporting a bang-up cast that included Martin Sheen and John Leguizamo, the original "Spawn" movie was not very well received. How could a reboot based on that same material hope to be any better?

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As countless terrible movies starring Oscar winners have proved in the past, you need more than just talented actors to make a movie work -- particularly a violent fantasy actioner like "Spawn." The movie has an interesting concept, but it's one that has been tried before and didn't work out particularly well.

Do comic book fans even want to see another "Spawn" movie, or are some things -- like this McFarlane creation -- best left in the decade they are so clearly a product of?