Todd McFarlane has decided that Jamie Foxx (Collateral, (2004), Django Unchained, (2012)) should be Al Simmons, the former member of the CIA who was betrayed and wound up a Hellspawn Warrior. Blumhouse is producing the film while McFarlane is writing and directing.
McFarlane estimates the production of the film to fall within 10-12 million. He says the character will not speak much and that this will not be an origin story. The film will be R-rated.
Characteristically, McFarlane is quite loquacious about his approach:
“It confuses people because of the comic book industry, and because they all default into their Captain America mindset and I keep saying, no, get into John Carpenter’s mindset or Hitchcock. This is not a man in a rubber suit, it’s not a hero that’s going to come and save the damsel. It’s none of that. At the end of the movie, I’m hoping that the audience will say either, is this a ghost that turns into a man, or is it a man that turns into a ghost? I’ve got a trilogy in mind here, and I’m not inclined in this first movie to do an origin story. I’m mentally exhausted from origin stories. Luckily, there’s a movie that just came out that helps my cause. In A Quiet Place, the first thing on screen is a card in black and white letters that says Day 89. It doesn’t care about what happened in those first 88 days. There are a couple headlines, but then we are on day 450. That movie doesn’t worry about explaining and giving all the answers. What it said in that case was, if you can hang on for a story of survival of this family, this movie will make complete sense for you.”
Confession, I don’t really like Jamie Foxx. He strikes me as a guy who I would wind up punching in the mouth if we found ourselves forced to associate for whatever reason. I find his personality obnoxious. With that said, I do think he can act, but I can only think of one movie that I actually ‘liked’ his character, and that was Collateral. I could hang out with the character in that film. He was self-deprecating and earnest…which from what I have seen…Mr. Foxx is not. So, good acting!
McFarlane seems to agree…about the acting part.
“There are five or six moments where I’m going to need things from my actors, and a couple of them have to come from Jamie, and I’ve seen him deliver them onscreen,” McFarlane said. “He gets into a zone, with body language and a look that basically will say way more than anything i could type on a piece of paper, and this movie is going to need those moments. And in the odd moment where he has to deliver a line that’s short, curt and has impact, he can do it in a way that makes you go, ‘Whoa, I don’t want to mess with that guy. What a badass.’”
How that translates to this film I guess we’ll see. I was a fan of Mr McFarlane’s artwork pretty much from the jump and while I haven’t followed him to Image Comics and his other ventures I am rooting for an old comic hand from back in the day. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, more comic book writers and artists should write and direct their properties on TV and Film. I think this should become a standard.
Oh course…If they put SJW crap in this movie I’m going to have to blast it to hell and cut McFarlane off at the knees!
