LOL: Todd McFarlane Wants Leonardo DiCaprio To Topline New Spawn Film

The next sentence should be considered an open letter to Todd McFarlane. Todd, please don't ever change; your massive ego and grandiose plans never fail to entertain us. According to MTV, McFarlane has Leonardo DiCaprio in mind to head up the cast of the new Spawn film. Not as Spawn, because that would just be ridiculous, but as the guy chasing Spawn. Wait, it gets better. "It's not a big special-effects movie," says McFarlane, "it's a character movie, so I could shoot it in 40-50 days and you don't have to budget that much time." He even refers to the potential project as a "Godfather-type movie". Still not amused? There's more after the jump.

"It's a big wish, but his dad was a big fan of underground comic books and he came from that," says the artist of DiCaprio. No question on the 'big wish' part, but I would have thought by this time that Todd would have a better understanding of underground comics. Robert Crumb's work was underground. Yummy Fur was underground. (My god, the Ed story is still some of the most insane stuff I've ever read, period.) So was Dirty Plotte, even though Julie Doucette won a Harvey. Spawn, and in fact anything that has McFarlane's name on it, has never, ever, been underground by any stretch of the imagination. Independent, perhaps, but that's different.

I could rant about that for another minute, but I still wouldn't be addressing the question of why there could even be a new Spawn film in the first place. As I understand it, some of the heavily horror-themed stories that had nothing to do with McFarlane might make for good film (or, better, TV) fodder. But that's not a part of the urban cops and crime movie that is being alluded to here.

Oh, and back at the beginning, when I asked Todd not to change? I want to amend that. Because he was part of the problem with respect to the unavailability of Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman's Miracleman, a wonderful set of stories which remain unfinished and out of print. When it comes to messing with deals like that Todd should really change.