'Spawn' Reboot Will Have "No Joy", According To Todd McFarlane

Finally, someone is going to be brave enough to make a dark and gritty superhero movie. Todd McFarlane has been teasing a Spawn reboot for years, and he's teamed with Blumhouse to make it a reality. McFarlane has spoken frequently about what he's hoping to achieve with this new film – an R-rated horror-movie vibe that's far removed from the terrible 1997 Spawn movie. Now, McFarlane has added even more detail by claiming this new film is going to be both "dark" and "ugly." And that's not all! The movie will also be completely free of joy. Sounds fun!

After The Dark Knight blew the bloody doors off the box office, "dark and gritty" became the name of the game when making superhero movies. Hollywood looked at the success of Christopher Nolan's serious Bat-film, and assumed audiences wanted their heroes to be dark, dark, dark. In recent years, superhero movies – mostly from Marvel – have thankfully moved away from all that darkness and let a little light in. But Todd McFarlane is ready to take us back to the dark and gritty days with the long-awaited Spawn reboot.

Speaking with Nerdist, McFarlane promised that there will be "no joy" in Spawn, adding:

"There's gonna be no fun lines in it, and it's just gonna be this dark, ugly two hours worth of movie, which is essentially what a lot of supernatural/horror movies are anyway. There's not a lot of funny in them. And that seems to be a weird hurdle for a lot of people in this city to get over because they sort of go into a superhero/Avengers default all the time."

Obviously, the story should dictate the tone of the film in question. Spawn has always been a dark character, so promising a darker movie makes sense. Still, coming right out and saying the movie will have "no joy" might be pushing it. I don't mind dark movies, but watching something utterly joyless can grow a bit tedious. On top of that, I felt very little joy watching the 1997 Spawn, but that was for a different reason.

Spawn will find McFarlane making his directorial debut, with Jamie Foxx set to play Spawn, a murdered government assassin who is sent back to earth after making a deal with the devil. But the movie isn't going to be from Spawn's point-of-view. Instead, the main character will be Detective Twitch Williams, played by Jeremy Renner. The detective and Spawn team up in some capacity, which McFarlan describing their relationship as "Spawn is King Arthur and Twitch is Sir Lancelot."

There's no release date set yet for the joyless Spawn reboot, but production is supposed to begin in June 2019.