McFarlane says that the new film will be R-rated, low budget endeavor. As for the script, “I’m three quarters through it. I’ll finish it and put it on a shelf for about a week. What usually happens is, I come back to it so I can see all the flaws. I do a rewrite and there’s a first draft at that point. Then I’ll start soliciting comments from people I trust to see if I can get the script into working shape. If I can’t, I’m open to someone coming in and helping me with it.
[A few studios have phoned me to talk about the project] and when I walk into these pitch meetings, I go here’s the story. I give them the broad strokes. Then I go, here’s the non-negotiable part: I write, produce, direct. That’s it. There’s only one way a studio is going to say yes, that’s if it’s a low-budget movie. To be honest, as a producer, even I wouldn’t hire myself to direct a big-budget film. There are smarter people out there. But if you’re making it for $10 million to $12 million, you’re just going to go get some schmuck director so let me be the schmuck.
In this new version, there are no supervillains, archenemies or any of that. It’s just a spook movie, something scary going bump in the night. I think I can shoot that for almost next to nothing.”
There you have it. I like that McFarlane knows exactly what he wants to do with the flick and won’t let a studio persuade him otherwise. I’m also interested to see him get behind the camera for the feature. As for an R-rated “spook movie”? Count me in!
Melinda Clarke was in the first SPAWN