Todd McFarlane On How Much Jamie Foxx’s Spawn Will Actually Appear In The Movie

Spawn writer-director Todd McFarlane says he wants to get audiences out of “superhero mode” with his low-budget “creep movie” — and that means spending less time with its title character.

Asked by ComicBook.com if we’ll see more of Spawn now that big name star and Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx has been cast in the titular role, McFarlane said the movie will differ from traditional superhero fare and keep Al Simmons-slash-Spawn in the shadows.

“If you look at it from a superhero perspective, then, of course, Batman and Captain America and Spider-Man are on screen a ton. Because the cameras follow them down. That’s who the camera’s following,” McFarlane said.

“When you start going into creep movies, then the camera doesn’t follow the boogie man, or the monster. It follows humans, which I have in my movie. But people enjoy creepy movies and don’t go, ‘Oh my gosh, I wish I saw the boogie man more.’ They don’t do that. They just go, ‘Wow, that was cool.’”

McFarlane, who told ComicBook.com last July he was taking a Jaws approach to Spawn, told us his aim with this small-budget comic book movie is to steer audiences away from expecting traditional superhero blockbuster fare.

“I think that’s gotta be the odd part about the movie for some people who are gonna go. I just have to get them out of their superhero mode. Their $200 million dollar movie budget superhero mode to going into a creep movie,” McFarlane said.

“Think about all the creep movies you’ve been to in your life, which I’m sure dozens and dozens you’ve seen on TV. Which is dozens and dozens of these. That’s the formula.”

The famed comic book creator said in bringing his most iconic character to screen for the reboot he’s “just taking this superhero genre and mixing it with the creep formula.”

“That’s the only thing that will come off as being quote unquote sort of different about it,” he added. “And people may, if it works, may give me more credit than I will ever be due for the month. I’m not inventing anything. I’m just shuffling a couple parts together.”

McFarlane also told us the Blumhouse-produced Spawn isn’t a horror movie, but a “supernatural thriller.”

That will mean keeping Spawn in the shadows, instead giving most of the footwork to private investigator Twitch Williams.

“I don’t actually intend to show him from head to toe in the movie. You’re never going to get a hero shot in the movie,” McFarlane told SYFY.

“Twitch is the character I keep calling my Sheriff Brody. That movie is about the shark and how the shark moves and what he does. That’s my Spawn. Twitch is like Brody, who’s part of the human contingent who’s trying to find out if this thing really does exist.”

Spawn has yet to announce a release date.