Spawn
Hey, Do You Remember...?
Christopher Schrader
4.8 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 18 September 2015
⏱️ 123 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Spawn's time in the limelight was pretty brief in the grand scheme of things, but for a moment there this character was EVERYWHERE - comic books, cartoons, video games, action figures, trading cards... you name it and there was probably a piece of merchandise with his face on it. A live-action feature film adaptation was inevitable, but instead of being the culmination of Spawn's propulsive popularity, it instead indicated that perhaps this property's glory days were winding down.
There's a lot to discuss here and the HDYR gang does their best to sort through the nonsensical script and scattershot direction in order to figure out how such a straightforward concept could get transformed into something so muddled.
Topics include: Chris and Carlos' memories of the Spawn comic and their initial reactions to the movie, an easy fix that would have helped the filmmakers stretch their modest budget, the problem with giving Al Simmons a moral center before he goes to hell, makingthe costume work on film, the constant and unnecessary narration, Donna's confusion over everybody's motivation, an argument for putting a limit on Spawn's powers, and much much more!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, do you remember Spawn? |
| 0:06.7 | Hello and welcome? Hey, do you remember Spawn? Hello and welcome to Hey Do You Remember, a show where we reminisce about a movie your TV series we grew up with, then take off the rose-tinted glasses to see how it holds up. |
| 0:32.0 | I'm Chris. |
| 0:32.6 | I'm Donna. |
| 0:33.6 | And I'm Carlos. |
| 0:34.7 | And today we're revisiting Spawn. |
| 0:53.1 | Yeah. And I'm Carlos. And today we're revisiting Spawn. As a comic book artist, Todd McFarland made a name for himself with his work on titles like Batman and The Incredible Hulk, but it was his run on the amazing Spider-Man that turned him into a full-fledged superstar. |
| 1:04.0 | Like a lot of other high-profile artists at the time, McFarlane was frustrated by the way his work was being merchandised by Marvel and DC, while he only |
| 1:11.9 | received the standard and rather paltry work for higher fee. Another sticking point was that all of the |
| 1:17.4 | characters he was creating during his tenure on these titles were owned by the publisher and not by |
| 1:22.3 | him. This led to the creation of Image Comics, an umbrella company under which a handful of creators |
| 1:27.8 | each owned their own publishing house. This meant the creator retained the rights to anything |
| 1:32.4 | they created and that no one else could interfere creatively or financially on any of their work. |
| 1:38.3 | Image Comics launched with four titles, Rob Leifeld's Youngblood, Eric Larson's Savage Dragon, |
| 1:43.6 | Jim Lee's Wildcats, and McFarlane's |
| 1:45.6 | contribution, Spawn. Due to his established popularity and comic book collector's hopes of getting |
| 1:51.4 | in on the next big thing at the ground level, the book was an immediate hit. The first |
| 1:55.9 | issue of Spawn sold 1.7 million copies. For comparison sake, the best-selling titles now typically sell just over |
| 2:03.3 | 100,000 copies. McFarlane was immediately approached with offers to turn Spawn into a movie, but he |
| 2:08.7 | made the decision to hold out for a deal that afforded him more creative control and allowed him to |
| 2:13.3 | retain the merchandising rights. Around the time Spawn's second issue was hitting shelves, |
| 2:17.7 | he became friends with three visual effects artists from industrial light and magic, Mark |
... |
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