Jamie Foxx is to play the lead role in comic book movie ‘Spawn’.
The ‘Django Unchained’ star has signed up to play the titular role, an anti-hero and Hell soldier in a new big screen adaptation of the hit 90s comic book character, according to Deadline.
‘Spawn’ will be the directorial debut of the comic’s creator Todd McFarlane.
Foxx will play AI Simmons, a CIA black ops soldier who is murdered by his own team. He is persuaded to become a Hellspawn warrior so that he can return to earth and see his wife. But he’s left devastated when he finds out the love of his life has moved on and married his best friend and he is stuck in the body of a demon.
Spawn then embarks on a battle against lowlifes residing on Earth, Heaven and Hell.
This isn’t the first time Foxx has worked with McFarlane as the 50-year-old actor previously played comic book villain Electro in his film ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’.
Meanwhile, ‘Spawn’ was previously made into a live-action movie in 1997 starring Michael Jai White.
McFarlane’s vision is for a low-budget, R-rated and deeply dark movie, true to the original comic book, which will be produced by horror company Blumhouse.
McFarlane told Deadline: “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. We’ll eventually do some of the backgrounds 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 then that’s good because I’m hoping to take you for a long ride with this franchise.”
