I hope to see a Spawn reboot real soon

Deadpool is a game changer. It’s not the first time a Superhero movie was Rated R (Blade), but it was the first one to be done so on purpose. Kickass, is a great movie but it technically does not count. It was a comic book before being adapted into a motion picture, but from what I herd, it was always the intention for kick Ass to be a movie. Plus Deadpool’s impressive box office numbers (along with great reviews) can only mean that the studios will try to go this direction for other comic book superheroes who can’t cut the squeaky clean image of Steve Rodgers.

And that’s where the superhero (Black Superhero) Spawn comes in? Back when this comic book was jumping off news stands like Deadpool was selling movie tickets, they tried to get him into the movie biz, with a 1997 adaption that starred Micheal Jai White before anyone really knew that this cat had marshal arts skills. It’s actually fucked up because when White (whose only other major role was playing Mike Tyson in a HBO biopic) was cast as Spawn, The big thing about that was the fact that he knew a bunch of different Karate styles. Then when you see the flick the guy does one kick in the movie. I Remember when Blade came a year later, all of us were saying “this is what we thought Spawn was going to be like” and it could have, if they were not sleeping on the skill sets we discovered soon enough White possessed.

And of course on top of that, Spawn was PG-13. Around the same time as the movie, Spawn was adapted into an animated series on HBO which was filled with adult content, language, graphic violence, even nudity. This was one of the best animated series I’ve ever scene and a more well done adaption of the character. Spawn should have been a Rated R movie, not just for the sake of being Rated R, but to perfectly adapt the comic to the big screen (cause Spawn is nothing like Batman. He’ll kill you if you step out of line and it won’t be pretty).

But that’s Hollywood for you.  One character, Terry Fitzgerald, who’s a black guy in the comic, was cast as a white dude in the movie. This is worthy to mention, because it was another time when all Fanboys got together and said “Hey! you missed cast this character”, and they were saying that about a black character turned white, but it was at a time when the Fanboys were only a handful of fat pimple faced virgins, in comparison to the “I only know about the movie version” blogging army it is today.

It was also a time when we were still hungry for superhero movies, as the only constant turn out was a Batman film biannually. You would hear rumors of a superhero movie being develop like X-Men and Superman who were being develop all through the 90s, but most of them never came to light. So props to Spawn creator Todd McFarlane who published the character in 1992 and got a movie made five years later.

Todd McFarlane mention that in order to get the forty million dollar budget they got they had to compromise on Terry Fitzgerald (I personally think Mario Van Peebles could have played Terry Fitzgerald and added more (black) star power to the film(Hell, at that time, he could have played Spawn himself and got people into the seats). Also herd that the studio convince McFarlane that too many black people in the main cast (and possibly the one Latino who played the villain, Clown (AKA Violator) John Leguizamo) would influence the movie going public to think this is for the “urban market” (I guess the all rock soundtrack with a hit single by Marilyn Manson would have confused the shit out of the “non urban market”)  My adult self is a little ashamed that the kid in me was like McFarlane, more concern with seeing the movie made than to raising an eye brow over the fact that they subtracted a person of color from the cast.

Well Two, actually. Due to a falling out between fellow comic book publisher, Image co-founder, Rob Liefeild (A personal hero of mine)and Todd McFarlene, The movie altered Spawn’s origin slightly. In the comic, Spawn’s alter ego Al Simmons, was betrayed by Chapel, a character who is also African American, and technically owned by Liefeild who used him in his own comic book, Young blood (A team of superheroes who get treated like celebrities. Now that sounds like a comic book that would make a perfect movie right now) . In the movie, Al Simmons faces the same betrayal but from a new charter created for the movie called Priest, played by Melinda Clarke. Looking back, one cool scene in the movie is when main antagonist, Jason Wynn tells Jessica Priest to take care of Spawn, she waste no time plugging him up with her most heavy artillery, pretty bad ass. In this age of female equality, I would love to see Priest be used again in the reboot (Maybe we can meet half way by making Priest a black woman. Since she did not officially start out in the comics, geeks will have no reason to get pissed (What am I saying, they never need a reason)

As I’m writing this post, I realize the studio may have had some point. One of the main villains, Jason Wynn is played by Marian Sheen who was the biggest name in the cast. Now, If they did cast a black guy to play Fitzgerald and kept Chapel in the origin story, then Sheen’s role would have made him the perfect Blaxpolation villain (Back in the day they would get once famous white people to play “the Man” Black heroes would reveal at the end of the film). They could have renamed it Shaft goes to Hell up in Harlem, which I would have been down to see, but would have most def made it something in the 99 cents bin at the supermarket under urban classic (well actually, most likely there is a copy of Spawn in that bin anyway)

Now, after the success of Deadpool, it would be a perfect time to get a reboot of Spawn going. I hear McFarlane is already on the case with a script ready to go, and a plan to start production in 2016, but since 2016 is over half way over, it may be awhile before this Spawn reboot happens. Maybe if we are lucky, when the sequel to Deadpool comes out, it will be the same year the new Spawn comes out. Even more incentive for McFarlane to push for something more hard hitting than what happen almost twenty years ago (It really is no excuse, even the toy-line he created for Spawn in 1993 was more Edgier than that movie)

I’m not looking for Spawn to be up at the strip club looking at bouncing boobs while his creator does a cameo as the DJ (McFarlane actually had a Stan Lee-like cameo as a homeless man in Spawn). I’m just looking for an adaption that is more faithful to the comic (But if they want to do that bouncing boobs scene, I’m not gonna talk them out of it (Just pointing out how Cliche it is to do to give your movie a hard R). We are now living in a world where a movie going audience are more than willing to see the full on accept of what the comic is.

And remember FanBoys, If they try to use that other Spawn(I don’t known his name and don’t care to), be vocal and viral about using Al Simmons and making sure a black dude plays him like he is in the comics.