AdapNation: Spawn Remake

In which I make the case for film and TV adaptations, sequels, crossovers and remakes.

It really should come as no surprise to anybody that Superheroes have become big business in Hollywood recently.  Movies like Batman and Superman were always hugely successful, but since 2000, the genre has boomed into being one of the blockbuster season's safest bets.  The fact that movies like Days of Future Past, Age of Ultron and Man of Steel are at this point a foregone conclusion.

Since Marvel proved that shared universes are pretty much the only way to go about making superhero movies these days, however, the expanding field of superhero movies has been stuck in a pretty strict binary: Marvel movies and DC movies.  Sure, some (like Fantastic Four and X-Men) have come from different studios, but you never see anything coming from a third party these days.

The last time that we saw Hellboy was in 2008: the same year that Iron Man launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Sky High was in 2005.  The Crow was in 1994.  And whether people know it or not, Watchmen and Big Hero 6 are directly lifted from the DC and Marvel comics of the same names.

People talk about "the superhero bubble" like it hasn't already burst.  Marvel's been quietly reacquiring its film properties for years now, from Daredevil to Hulk, and now even have Spider-Man back within their fold.  The only holdouts are those owned by Fox, who won't be giving those up anytime soon.  The world went from having nearly a dozen different players in the superhero game to just three, two of which draw from the same batch of comic books.

The problem with this is that there are a lot of great comic properties that don't belong to either company.  There are your Hellboys, sure, but also your Witchblades and Darknesses too.  Spawn is particularly ripe for adaptation at the moment.

This isn't Spawn's first go-around the movie theater, however.  It had its shot in 1997, before Superheroes really broke out cinematically.  While I've always been reasonably happy with it, the sentiment isn't an especially popular one.  The film was clumsily plotted, relied far too heavily on under-developed CGI and never had the brand recognition that similarly dark heroes - like Batman - have always enjoyed.

Sure, it wasn't an abject failure at the box office, but it was a modest box office success at best.  It lost most of its following when it rotated out of theaters and its 19% on Rotten Tomatoes didn't do it any favors in finding an audience on DVD.  The movie never built up enough traction for a sequel, despite Spawn creator Todd McFarlane's best efforts to the contrary.

But a bad first impression shouldn't keep an otherwise goldmine of a property out of the movie business.  If that were the case, we'd never have gotten Hulk in the MCU after that God-awful first movie he was in.  Batman wouldn't have been able to recover from Batman and Robin and Superman wouldn't have been able to recover from The Quest for Peace, and Batman vs Superman is one of next year's most anticipated movies!

Even among the big-hitters, you'll be hard-pressed to find a more visually striking comic character than Spawn.  That's really the first movie's most endearing feature.  CG aside, it looks amazing.  The costume is easily one of the best in its genre and translates perfectly to film (unlike some others that I could mention).

He looks like some kind of demonic Black Panther with a cape straight out of Tim Burton's worst nightmare.  Pair that with a glowing pair of green eyes, and you have a protagonist that you're not likely to forget anytime soon.  And that's what Spawn has over Superman, Thor and even Batman: visual staying power.  Spawn simply leaves one hell of an impression.

His demonic powers are a natural extension of his visually arresting costume.  He can create spikes or chains from his body, fire blasts of necroplasmic energy, create a massive battle axe to fight with and basically anything else that he can imagine.  This is in addition to his lifetime of military and combative training and his unnaturally augmented strength, speed and healing factor.

Like Thor, the most interesting thing about Spawn was his apocalyptic promise.  But while the Thunderer Ragnarok, but Spawn has Armageddon: the final, devastating war between Heaven and Hell.  So if you're going to make a Spawn movie, you might as well make it with that as its end-game.

I'd imagine that the best way to go about the property is to plan it out as a trilogy, gradually expanding upon its universe to the point of Armageddon.  The first movie would detail Spawn's origins and his work as a Hellspawn, eventually breaking free of his dark master's will.  The second would focus on the coming war between Heaven and Hell, which would finally be realized in the final film.

The best part about this is that it could potentially be the first of a shared cinematic universe for Image Comics.  Cogliostro always struck me as being the kind of character that could support his own movie(s) (either prequels or spin offs).  The immeasurably titillating Witchblade would also be included in Image's lineup, herself overdue for a live-action movie.  Savage Dragon would essentially take the Hulk role in an Image Comics universe while Saga would take things cosmic (same as Guardians of the Galaxy).  Invincible, Chew, Outcast and Haunt could likewise round up the roster.

Given how much money superheroes make today without even trying, Image Comics is the most realistic third party contender to Marvel's and DC's stranglehold over the genre.  Marvel's proven time and time again that no-name properties can be the cornerstone of cinematic empires and DC's warming up the public to darker and more mature material.  Spawn is the perfect property to test the waters with.

So what other superheroes would you like to see get the big-screen treatment?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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