This may come as a surprise to you, but Spawn creator Todd McFarlane likes his movies incredibly dark and super-serious. So, with that in mind, it should come as no surprise that his plans for the upcoming Blumhouse adaptation of the Hellspawn antihero's story is going to be equally grim. And we're not talking about R-rated adaptations like Deadpool, which breaks every funnybone in Wade's body, or even Logan, which is buoyed by themes of family, friendship, and parenthood. McFarlane's take is going to strip anything enjoyable out of this story, save for the sadists in the audience.

In a chat with Nerdist, McFarlane doubled down on his plan for the dark and dirty adaptation. Now it's worth mentioning that, the last we heard about this project it was still seeking financing. In other words, Spawn is a long way off from starting production and further still from landing a release date. Going darker and grittier in 2019 is a curious move considering that Zack Snyder's color-sapped and dark-for-darkness' sake DC Universe movies have been eclipsed in the zeitgeist by more colorful, fun, and hopeful films like Wonder Woman and Aquaman in recent years. But if there's one comic book character who might actually benefit from a grim-dark take on the material, it's McFarlane's soldier of fortune-turned-Hellspawn.

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Image via Image Comics

Here's what McFarlane had to say about Spawn:

“There’s no joy. There’s gonna be no fun lines in it, and it’s just gonna be this dark, ugly two hours worth of movie, which is essentially what a lot of supernatural/horror movies are anyway. There’s not a lot of funny in them. And that seems to be a weird hurdle for a lot of people in this city to get over because they sort of go into a superhero/Avengers default all the time.”

That's pretty much in line with what McFarlane's been saying all along, and definitely in keeping with his personal take on the material and his own personal tastes when it comes to movies. In a visit to Collider Live last month, McFarlane talked about his take on Spawn in this new adaptation, compared the title antihero to Batman, and dropped hypotheticals about disposing of real-world pedophiles, as you do.

For more of our coverage on all things Spawn, be sure to get caught up with the following links:

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Image via Todd McFarlane Entertainment