The idea that Joker could give Spawn a big lift into the theaters isn’t too far off the mark really since it shows that comic book movies can in fact get dark and gritty. But wait, wouldn’t Logan have done that as well, or Deadpool? Maybe the ‘it’ factor just wasn’t there with those movies since honestly, despite the melancholy feel of Logan, both movies were bound to do well since far more people knew the characters and connected with them in various ways. Spawn is a character that, unfortunately, a lot of people don’t know that much about and is more of a niche idea since his story is pretty specific. But apparently Ryan Scott of MovieWeb and many others are under the impression that the dark and grimy feel of Joker might give a little more credence to the fact that a comic book movie can in fact be dark and foreboding. Again though, we’ve seen the possibility for this before, it was even present with Blade, who is, as you know, also from the comics.
Maybe it’s the need to cling to something brand new and shiny that makes people forget what came before, even if said movies were considered great or at least watchable for their time. In any regard the idea that a comic book movie can be R-rated and be just as good is kind of an obvious ‘duh’ moment that we’ve seen enacted more than once, so thinking that Joker deserves all the credit for this is, ironically, kind of funny. Granted, Joker is the latest big earner in the the theaters and might be kind of hard to beat depending on what comes after, but to think that it opened the door for Spawn to come through is kind of hard to fathom since that door was already open, it was a matter of getting the right people to give the attention it needed to happen. An R-rated Spawn movie is about the only way to go when it comes to this character since in the comics he’s one of the nastiest heroes around and doesn’t really think twice about getting down and dirty when it comes to dishing out pain. Imagine if the Punisher went to hell and acquired the type of power that could allow him to do just about anything he could think of, and you’d have an estimation of who Spawn is. A former soldier who was betrayed by the people he worked for, his soul went straight to hell thanks to everything he’d done, but the powers that be in the underworld saw something in him that made them think he could possibly be a strong and capable leader of their legions.
Spawn still had enough of a strong sense of character and heroic nature however, and this allowed him to throw off the control of the creature that enacted the change in him. He could never go home again, and he wasn’t accepted by society any longer, but he still became a guardian, a protector of sorts that was unlike many other heroes since he’s not known for showing mercy or playing well with others. This was kind of established when he met up with Batman and had the living crap kicked out of him before he turned the tables and took down the dark knight. It’s kind of obvious that Spawn is not the nice guy hero that everyone likes, but in a movie he really needs to be able to keep his raw edge and be allowed a bit of freedom to be the hard-hitting, demonic creature that he was made into. The Joker movie might have made people look yet again at the idea that R-rated comic book movies are possible and necessary, but if you really want to give credit then you need to think about Blade, Logan, Deadpool, even the most recent Hellboy, since all of them got decidedly bloody and didn’t hold back when it came to content, language, and the overall feel that this is wasn’t something you would call family-friendly. Spawn was created one of the least PC heroes in the genre, and as such he kind of needs to be given a hard R rating in order to really bring his full legend to bear.
It does sound as though Jamie Foxx is still on board, and Jeremy Renner, no matter how badly people want to see him gone from show business, is still attached to the picture. The movie is already bound to be better than the first attempt that starred Michael Jai White, Martin Sheen, and John Leguizamo, but then that bar was set pretty low to begin with. So yeah, thank the rated-R movies for this chance, but add Joker to the list instead making it THE list.
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