Comics

It’s Official: Jamie Foxx is Your New ‘Spawn’

Published

6 years ago

May 29, 2018

The Jamie Foxx–Spawn love story began five years ago when the star told Movies.com that he was “aggressively pursuing” a role in the Todd McFarlane-directed comic adaptation. “Spawn is one, yeah. And Mike Tyson,” said Foxx. “Those are two roles I would just love to do. I’m aggressively pursuing them.”

Now, with Blumhouse backing the new live-action Spawn, McFarlane has been teasing “big names” to star, even though it’s asserted that the title character/Al Simmons will have a minor role and won’t speak. Today, it’s been confirmed that Foxx will star as the title character, an elite mercenary (Al Simmons) who is killed but comes back from Hell as a reluctant soldier of the Devil.

“The scariest movies, from Jaws to John Carpenter’s The Thing, or The Grudge and The Ring, the boogeyman doesn’t talk,” McFarlane told Deadline, who confirmed the news.

“Spawn” was the first massive launch pad for Image Comics in May of 1992. New Line Cinema would adapt the comic in 1997 with Michael Jai White starring alongside John Leguizamo. A “Spawn” animated series also ran from 1997-1999 totally 18 episodes. It’s about damn time for a revival.

McFarlane previously teased that the new film will be a “dark/hard ‘R’“ and be about the boogeyman.

Deadline says the new incarnation has Foxx playing “Al Simmons”, a member of a CIA black ops team who is betrayed twice. After being set up by his cohorts to be murdered with his corpse set aflame, Simmons is double-crossed in Hell. He is convinced to become a Hellspawn warrior in exchange for being able to be reunited with his wife. But Spawn finds himself stuck in a demonic creature shell, and that his wife moved on and married his best friend. So this is one pissed off antihero who attends to dispatching the scum of the city in good and evil battles that encompass earth, heaven and hell.

There are plans for a trilogy, assuming the first is a hit:

“I’m mentally exhausted from origin stories,” said McFarlane.

He added: “We’ll eventually do some of the background if we make a trilogy, but that’s not this first movie. The first movie is just saying, do you believe? And if you believe than that’s good because I’m hoping to take you for a long ride with this franchise.”

You can read the full interview over at Deadline.

Fan art courtesy of Boss Logic

Related Topics:Jamie Foxx Spawn Todd McFarlane

Brad Miska

Horror movie fanatic who co-founded Bloody Disgusting in 2001. Producer on Southbound, V/H/S/2/3/94, SiREN, Under the Bed, and A Horrible Way to Die. Chicago-based. Horror, pizza and basketball connoisseur. Taco Bell daily. Franchise favs: Hellraiser, Child's Play, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Scream and Friday the 13th. Horror 365 days a year.

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Comics

‘Witchblade’ is Getting Resurrected This Summer in New Comic Series from Top Cow and Image Comics

Published

7 days ago

April 18, 2024

Meagan Navarro

Witchblade, the popular comic series that initially ran from 1995 to 2015 and launched a TV series, is getting resurrected in a new comic series from Top Cow and Image Comics. It’s set to unleash heavy metal, black magic and blood this summer.

Look for the new Witchblade series to launch on July 17, 2024.

In Witchblade #1, “New York City Police Detective Sara Pezzini’s life was forever fractured by her father’s murder. Cold, cunning, and hellbent on revenge, Sara now stalks a vicious criminal cabal beneath the city, where an ancient power collides and transforms her into something wild, magnificent, and beyond her darkest imaginings. How will Sara use this ancient power, or will she be consumed by it?”

The series is penned by NYT Best-Selling writer Marguerite Bennett (Animosity, Batwoman, DC Bombshells) and visualized by artist Giuseppe Cafaro (Suicide Squad, Power Rangers, Red Sonja). The creative duo is working with original co-creator Marc Silvestri, who is the CEO of Top Cow Productions Inc. and one of the founders of Image Comics. They are set to reintroduce the series to Witchblade’s enduring fans with “a reimagined origin with contemporary takes on familiar characters and new story arcs that will hook new readers and rekindle the energy and excitement that fueled the 90’s Image Revolution that shaped generations of top creators.”

Bennett said in a statement, “The ability to tell a ferocious story full of monsters, sexuality, vision, and history was irresistible.” She adds, “Our saga is sleek, vicious, ferocious, and has a lot to say about power in the 21st century and will be the first time that we are stopping the roller coaster to let more people on. I’ve loved Witchblade since I was a child, and there is truly no other heroine like Sara with such an iconic legacy and such a rich, brutal relationship to her own body.”

“The Witchblade universe is being modernized to reflect how Marguerite beautifully explores the extreme sides of Sara through memories, her personal thoughts, like desire and hunger, in her solitude and when she is possessed by the Witchblade. So, I had to visually intersect a noir True Detective-like world with a supernatural, horror world that is a fantastic mix between Berserk and Zodiac,” Cafaro stated.

Marc Silvestri notes, “This is brand new mythology around Sara, and I can’t wait for you to fall in love with her and all the twists and turns. Discover Witchblade reimagined this summer, and join us as we bring all the fun of the 90s to the modern age and see how exciting comics can be. I can’t wait for you to read this new series.”

Witchblade#1 will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, July 17th, for $4.99 for 48 pages. And it’ll come with multiple cover variants.