‘Spawn’ Reboot’s Working Title Revealed

Todd McFarlane’s Spawn movie reboot is about to go into production, and now it looks like the film’s working title has been revealed. According to Production Weekly, the Spawn reboot will shoot under the working title of “TONY DYNAMITE.”

Working titles for films can often reflect some kind of in-joke or thematic metaphor for the storyline of the film itself; Pursue News speculates that “Tony Dynamite” could be at least a partial reference to Tony Twist, a gangster character from the Spawn comics.

Spawn has been moving fast down the production pipeline recently, with Jamie Foxx signing on to play the titular role of a mercenary murdered on the battlefield, who finds himself in Hell and strikes a deal with the devil to return to Earth as a demonic entity and lead Hell’s army. Instead the Hellspawn tries to use his limit powers to solve his own murder, and serve as a defender against the forces of Hell. Along with Foxx, Avengers star Jeremy Renner has signed on to play Twitch Williams, the human police detective who first runs across Spawn‘s presence, and must decide what to do about the “monster” lurking in the alleyways.

Todd McFarlane is stepping into the director’s chair for this Spawn reboot; McFarlane has partnered with Blumhouse Pictures for modestly-budgeted take on the material (about $10 million), which will treat Spawn much like the first Jaws treated its monstrous shark: seldom scene or heard until the climax:

“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,” McFarlane said. “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 has been particularly insistent that this is going to be a “supernatural thriller” superhero movie, and not a straight up horror film like some fans have predicted. As he put it:

“I hesitate on the word horror,” McFarlane said. “I’m very specific about not using that word too much. Because it has a broad definition to a lot of people. “Horror, to my wife or to a lot of people, it means, oh, you’re gonna slaughter some co-eds in some bloodbath or something. I consider dialing it back to say it’s a supernatural thriller. So then it’s not gonna be a gore fest.”

Jamie Foxx has been particularly enthused about bringing out one aspect of the character that doesn’t immediately jump out in most fans’ minds:

“Spawn is one of the most interesting characters. Because he’s blessed by God but he’s raised by the Devil, in a sense. I said, “If you can convey that — that the superhero is blessed by God but raised by the Devil — that’s something we haven’t seen in a while.”

McFarlane’s Spawn movie does not yet have a release date – but is clearly headed into production soon.