Spawn in Hollywood
Or…How A Now Barely Watchable Movie Made Comic Book and Hollywood History: Part Three
Filming Spawn
Locations were scouted, with Los Angeles the preferred location, with filming to be shot in downtown LA, Pasadena and the Pacific Palisades. From there the crew would move to Hollywood and film at Raleigh Studios and the Hollywood Centre Studios. The original plan was to film in San Francisco, but that proved to be cost prohibitive. LA locations were sounded out for the film’s most impressive set piece, with LA's Natural History Museum coming up as the winner.
Shooting began on 13 August 1996, just shy of four years since the contracts for the movie had been signed and lasted, off and on, until 13 November. All told the location shoot lasted four months, not counting special effects.
‘Filming in L.A. has probably enabled us to save about 10% of our overall budget because everything's right here at our fingertips,’ producer Clint Goldman told Variety.
Production would have been considerably tougher in San Francisco since such everyday necessities as carpenters, stunt people, painters and stage space are not always readily available. And when resources aren't available, the entire production schedule can become fouled up, so you're looking at around $150,000 every time a shooting day is screwed up. In addition, you're spending dollars which don't go to the screen because you have to ferry 90% of the cast and 50% of the crew from Los Angeles to San Francisco and put them up in hotels. Well, in L. A. they just go home when they're not working. When you have to spend money and time on transportation and accommodation, you're not making a better picture. So, again, L.A. is allowing us to put those bucks onto the screen and, ultimately, make a superior film.[i]
‘One day Bob Shaye comes down,’ remembered Dippé.
And he says, ‘Mark, it’s so nice to see you. Dailies look great. I hear you’re a little bit behind. He goes, this is so great, he goes, ‘You’re gonna be on schedule tomorrow, aren’t you?’ I go, ‘I’m gonna do my best.’ He goes, ‘You’re gonna be on schedule tomorrow Mark, aren’t you?’ I say, ‘I’m really trying hard.’ And he goes, ‘You’re gonna be on schedule tomorrow aren’t you, Mark?’ I go, ‘Yeah.’ And I shake his hand, and he goes, ‘Great,’ and I’m thinking, it’s just like in those mafia movies. It’s like otherwise my legs get broken. It was really, I loved it, I just loved it, because he was smiling, and he was so calm.[ii]
For the most part, the shoot was a happy one. Children often visited the set and were entranced by Leguizamo in his full Clown get up. Leguizamo played up for the kids, improvising dialogue and generally scaring the bejesus out of them, but in a well-mannered way. To his credit, the kids saw past his makeup and often scarpered away giggling. Children being children, they were fascinated by the animatronics being used for Violator.
It wasn’t just location shoots that went over schedule. The film would feature some top line CGI effects, including a climactic fight between Spawn and Violator. Models, including a 13-foot-tall Violator, were made and 3D computer modelling was also brought into play. A full third of the $40,000,000 budget would be pumped into special effects. $8,500,000 went to Industrial Light and Magic, the company owned by George Lucas, for 85 shots.
We thought, okay, if we're gonna make an effects movie, we know it'll be good, but we don't wanna just do regurgitation of existing gags and vomit like Dragonheart or Twister or some of the other shit we've worked on for other people,’ Williams was quoted as saying. ‘We used motion capture on Michael Jai White and just fitted him into the CG Spawn.[iii]
A lot of stuff we had to change. The way McFarlane tends to draw characters such as the Violator probably wouldn't stand up very well in 3D simply because sort of as a quick anatomical example, the width of his hips is an example, the length of his jaw is drawn so it looks like it would never close successfully. So we had to make some modifications, obviously, to the way the character looked in 3D to make sure I could make him run and grab people and turn. Stuff of that nature. In terms of Spawn, Spawn was fairly accurate to the original and one of the signature things that happened with the cape in terms of the way Todd draws it for Spawn is its sort of drawn as a live entity. And a live entity as it's drawn in the two-dimensional medium by Todd is kind of very, very hard-edged corners and very flat texture and stuff. So that looks quite interesting as a 2D. So, this is the example. In 3D it probably wouldn't translate so well so we came up with a whole new language of motion using a system called Dynamation which is an Alias product. And again, we use a lot of off-the-shelf software to do these types of things.[iv]
Fortunately, director Dippé and creator McFarlane saw eye to eye on the changes.
‘There's always this translation difficulty when you go from one medium to another,’ Dippé said. ‘A book and a film are not the same thing, and they shouldn't even try to be. Todd and I talked about that quite a bit.[v]‘
‘I wasn't concerned with a literal adaptation,’ McFarlane agreed. ‘I never said, ‘Hey, that's not how I draw things!’ I was more worried about the attitude. When you look at the Spawn comic or HBO show, they're two different things, but the attitude is the same. It's rock 'n' roll. You have to play to each medium's strengths and find the consistencies. What's consistent about the Spawn character? That he's bitchin'! So, we thought, ‘Let's make a bitchin' movie.’[vi]‘
One change was the lack of the living, flowing, exaggerated cape that dominated the comic book. ‘For the hardcore audience, he still has it three or four times in the movie,’ MacFarlane explained. ‘When he needs it it's there, and when he doesn't it goes away. I just didn't think a cape would work all the time in a movie. The average person sees this big cape and is automatically going to think it's some cheesy, stereotypical comic-book thing, so we modified it slightly and it now falls into the realm of science fiction.[vii]‘
‘I didn't want Spawn to be a cartoony movie,’ Dippé added, ‘big-screen translations of comic books often rely on camp and kitsch value. Spawn is an edgy character, so I wanted to go for the kind of harder, more realistic feeling that audiences are probably more accustomed to seeing in a Jim Cameron science-fiction film.[viii]‘
It was a grueling shoot for the actors though, and they earned their money.
‘Mark Dippé allowed me to improvise like crazy, so I made up crazy amounts of dialogue - silly and grotesque, vulgar,’ John Leguizamo recalled years later.
It’s mostly in the R-rated version of the director’s cut, not so much in the PG-13 release. But it was grueling. The first day of test makeup was eight hours. I was under makeup for eight hours before I hit the stage. And then we got it down to about four hours. But I had blisters on my face -blisters, callouses on my neck. Oh, it was brutal.
I had to take some breaks sometimes, and I had to quit sometimes. It was like, ‘I can’t do this much longer. I’m feeling claustrophobic.’ I had giant contacts and fake, giant teeth. I had a prosthetic head. My whole face was covered up to my eyeballs. It would become too much, and they didn’t have a great cooling system back then. So, I was sweating up a storm. You would see water leaking out of my costume, and I wasn’t urinating. That’s just how much sweat was coming out. It was like a human condom. It was like wearing a human condom.[ix]
I'd wrap myself in Saran Wrap every day and run, you know, around 25 miles, so when I got on the film and had to carry around all the extra weight and sweat under all this heavy make-up it wouldn't be a problem.[x]
Leguizamo had fun with the character.
‘Clown is such a Machiavellian fellow - he's like a little Richard Nixon,’ Leguizamo remembered. ‘He's always trying to use his powers for himself, and I really saw that in the comic book, especially in the way Todd drew him. His expressions were so open, and that gave me the freedom to make the character even bigger.[xi]‘
‘He had to act through all that make-up, false teeth, contact lenses and a heavy fat suit, and he had to squawk around for 12 hours a day pretending to be eight inches shorter than he really is,’ Executive producer Alan Blomquist told the media. ‘The challenges were phenomenal as opposed to coming in, saying your lines and leaving.[xii]‘
‘The only problem I had with John was continually convulsing with laughter,’ Sheen said. ‘I adore him. And Spawn, I think, is going to be a major hit for him.[xiii]‘
Despite the discomfort, Leguizamo threw himself into the role, going as far to insist that he lick real maggots off a pizza that he digs out of a dumpster.
Michael Jai White also had issues with the costume and make-up he was required to wear, but he approached it differently to Leguizamo. It took two hours to put the Spawn make-up on each day, which consisted of a full body rubber suit which was glued to his skin, along with a mask that not only restricted his breathing but contained yellow contact lenses that stung his pupils.
‘The Spawn make-up and costume,’ White said after the movie wrapped, ‘getting to the set at three in the morning, sitting for hours to get that gook put all over my face and body, and then sweating for hours in a heavy rubber and whatever suit between shots, kind of worked my nerves. It was torture. So now when I'm on the subway wearing regular street clothes and the air conditioning fails, it doesn't bother me. Compared to wearing that sauna-like Spawn suit, it's like being in the middle of a heavenly breeze.[xiv]‘
Every time I hear someone complaining about the heat, and I'm sitting here marinating in my own juices, I feel like choking them,’ he said. ‘I look at this as being an exercise in will. When physical duress enforces focus, your mind only becomes stronger - the true basis of martial arts. To become a master, you must have a strong will and unbreakable concentration.[xv]
You really have to reserve your energy for that 14th hour. There are times where I feel like I can't even manage to speak, and I want to avoid that feeling at all costs. If all I had to worry about was physical energy, I would be fine, but often I may have my most dramatic scene at the end of the day, so I have to be rough on myself so I don't lose any of my energy.[xvi]
‘He obviously had the hardest task because he's the lead and the title character, and everybody is coming in with an image of Spawn from the comic,’ Blomquist said. ‘He faced the same dilemma Michael Keaton faced in Batman or Peter Weller in RoboCop. That is, he had to find a way to still act in spite of the suit.[xvii]‘
Despite his discomfort, like Leguizamo, White also found a certain satisfaction in playing the role.
‘The difficulty was generating a sense of sympathy for this character,’ recalled White. ‘You can sympathize with a grocer who makes a mistake, cheats on his wife and tries to fight his way back. But a man who’s a government assassin, who goes to hell and comes back? Spawn is the most tragic character I’ve ever encountered in any cinematic production. He’s dealt such a bad hand in his deal with the underworld. Each time he uses his powers, the closer to death he becomes, so he tries not to use them. If that’s not Shakespearian, I don’t know what is.[xviii]‘
Spawn isn't a character without his flaws, but he works through them to become a better person. This guy isn't just affecting the 'hood, but the whole planet. 'Spawn' is one of the best vehicles to reach kids I could have asked for.[xix]‘
White also found himself enjoying the special effects and appeared to relish the challenge of being set on fire. ‘I wasn't afraid of the fire. Before we started, I was really claustrophobic, and that's what was getting to me - always being encased in something with no breathing room. I welcomed the fire once they lit me up, because they'd soaked me down with this gel that they kept on ice for four days prior to application. I don't think I'd ever been so cold in my life. I was like, ‘Man, I'm cold; please light me on fire.’[xx]‘
Spawn had to be different from Simmons, so a voice change was made. ‘When I first looked at Spawn in the mirror, that voice just came out,’ White would later say. ‘So that's what I see and it's what I hear. It becomes a part of me. I don't want to overanalyze it or jinx it, but I guess it has just worked out that way.[xxi]‘
In contrast to Leguizamo and White, Sheen appeared to be disinterested in the film to the point of phoning in his performance. Reviews commented upon his appearance (‘Martin Sheen as bug-eyed villain Jason Wynn has darkened his hair in hopes of being mistaken for his son Charlie’) to the sound of his voice (‘…sounding like he swallowed a lit cigar’) and some of the laughable dialogue that he was given. Sadly, Randle and Sweeny were to feature in the movie’s main sub-plot As this was scrapped, they had little more to do than just stand around.
McFarlane threw himself into the project fully and he enjoyed what he saw. ‘This is what I've been living with upstairs in my head, yep, I'm always thinking in three dimensions when I draw these guys. But to see them walking around is impressive. As long as it looks cool, I'm happy. If people thought Batman was dark, Christ, wait till they see this. Batman is candy floss as far as I'm concerned.[xxii]‘
There was one more person in the film, although he would appear uncredited. In the middle of the film, Spawn trips over a bum in an alley. Both Spawn and the camera take a long look at him. That bum?
Todd McFarlane.
McFarlane was having a ball. He was learning the process of filmmaking, and he was watching his creations come to life.
‘They were shooting the actors in their costumes to see how they looked on film, and somebody asked to take a picture of me between Spawn and Clown,’ McFarlane said. ‘As I stood there between the two guys, it was the first time during the entire process that I thought this was kind of cool. These guys were in my brain 10 years ago, and now they were standing there in 3-D. That feeling soon went away, though, and then it came down to 'OK, we're just making a movie.’[xxiii]‘
Once filming finished, editing and post-production started. The editing created its own set of headaches for the filmmakers.
For a start, visual effects had to be added into the film.
‘We're definitely adding a lot as we go into post,’ Goldman said at the time. ‘Internally, we never imagined adding as much as we have, but we're making it happen. We've added to the whole digital hell sequence, which has basically come from nothing. It's a sequence we wanted to do and decided we needed, so we ended up cutting our principal photography schedule short so we would have enough money to do the hell sequence properly in the digital world.[i]‘
The first cut of the film was shown to those who had worked on the film. This version would never be seen by the public, and, by all accounts, probably never will be. It retained a lot of back stories behind the character of Al Simmons.
‘There was a version, early on, that had the story intact: About a man who was in love with his wife, so much so he decided to leave what he had been doing for a living that was questionable to his soul,’ Michael Jai White recalled years later. ‘In the first iteration of the movie, those elements were intact, but the final version, all of the backstory was taken out. You couldn’t even see the life that Al Simmons was trying to get back to. The director crowded the movie with so many special effects that the story got lost. You lose empathy for the main character.[ii]‘
But what worked for White didn’t work for McFarlane, Dippé and Williams. ‘Some of the shots just didn't work on film,’ McFarlane said, ‘and it was dragging on before we got to the meat and potatoes that we knew the kids would want. So, we had to kind of like, pick up the pace and lose the things - I hate to say - that people don't really care about. Which is like relationships and responsibility and dealing with a man and a woman.[iii]‘
‘We don't hang on to shots for too long,’ Steve Williams said, ‘with Spawn we know it's an effects movie. We're not trying to kid ourselves.[iv]‘
More cuts were made and then the censors stepped in. The first cut was handed an R Rating, which meant that the bulk of the target audience would not be allowed to see it. And DeLuca had been clear, he wanted a PG-13 film, and he would get a PG-13 film.
The target audience, young males from the ages of 13 to 21, required the PG rating, but the amount of gore and language in the film ensured that this would not happen. The best the filmmakers could get was an R rating, placing the film out of reach for them, so concessions were made to gain the coveted PG rating.
‘The comic's readership is very adult, and the themes and ideas should appeal to both adults and children,’ Dippe said. ‘The movie does deal with some very outrageous ideas and violent themes, but we're not concentrating on people getting their brains splattered on the wall. It's dealing with this mythological war between creatures - Spawn vs. Violator. Their battle is intense, but the brutality, unlike in some films, is not the issue. It's the story itself, which deals with the dark side of people. So there are some complexities in that regard. I feel we've found a way to maintain our integrity about the story and still deal with it in a powerful way.[v]‘
‘We had to deal with very arcane and cloaked arguments over what’s acceptable for kids,’ Dippé said, ‘it upsets me because the boundaries float very conveniently depending on who the parties involved are and the way the winds in this country blow. Everyone knows certain stars make films for kids, so it’s ok for them to make a film where people die, get their heads ripped off, whatever. But we make a film about a man who goes to hell, and we can’t show any blood. We can even say the word ‘hell’.’
We showed the uncut, R-rated version to 350 kids in a test screening. Not one of them had a problem with it. We even showed it to 8 to 13-year-old girls. None of them were horrified by the film. Some of them said they were scared during parts, but they felt ok overall. This is a parent’s issue, not a kid’s issue.[vi]
‘The MPAA would never tell us what scene or aspect of the film was too violent or extreme,’ Goldman added. ‘Therefore, as filmmakers we had to decide what limitations to impose on our movie. And one of those limitations was not to say ‘hell’. That’s just the way it is, you can’t fight city hall.[vii]‘
‘If rabbis and moms don't get what Spawn's about is because I'm not shooting for the rabbis and the moms,’ McFarlane added. ‘I'm shooting for the kids that are tired of things being sanitized in our society. Everything being politically correct.[viii]‘
Most kids who see `Spawn' and other comic book-based pictures like `Superman' and `Batman,' know that violence is make-believe,’ White chimed in. ‘Nevertheless, I think parents should use their discretion as far as a child's age and capacity to differentiate between what's real and what's not and what's right and what's wrong, before they allow them to see any movie, they know has violence in it.[ix]
Such were the problems with getting the PG-13 rating, that editing and additional dialogue dubbing (often called looping) continued into 1997. The film was finally finished and ready for release on June 28, 1997, leaving the filmmakers a month to promote the film.
White saw the final, PG-13 cut. ‘I didn’t know what was going on,’ he remembered. ‘I was one of the people privy to the first cut of the movie,’ he adds. ‘You never see Al Simmons or Spawn with [his wife] Wanda. You only see her married to his best friend afterward. I just felt, ‘Wow, I didn’t really like that choice.’’
As McFarlane had retained the merchandising rights, toys were, of course, prepared. These were met with mixed opinions, but Martin Sheen was delighted with his.
Well, frankly I'm thrilled. I never thought that I'd ever be an action figure and thanks to Todd McFarlane I am. I didn't want to do it at first because I thought that I would end up on toilet seats and other places of ridicule. But then I thought I've been an actor all of my life and I've done a pretty thorough job of ridiculing myself, so I thought ‘why not?’ And Todd McFarlane assured me that it would be done with great dignity, and he has been very good to his word.[x]
[i] Ibid
[ii] Michael Jai White Says What Made Him Proud About 'Spawn', 25 Mar 2019
[iii] American Cinematographer, Aug 1997
[iv] Ibid
[v] Spawn: The Movie
[vi] American Cinematographer, Aug 1997
[vii] Ibid
[viii] W - FIVE - CTV Television, Toronto, 14 Oct 1997
[ix] New York Amsterdam News, 31 Jul 1997
[x] Martin Sheen Show, AOL, 7 Jul 1997
[i] Variety, Nov 18-24, 1996
[ii] Vfxblog 6 Dec 2017
[iii] Toronto Star, 1 Aug 1997
[iv] Canada AM - CTV Television, Toronto, 1 Aug 1997
[v] American Cinematographer, Aug 1997
[vi] Ibid
[vii] Spawn: The Movie
[viii] Ibid
[ix] https://www.avclub.com/john-leguizamo-on-wearing-heels-singing-on-his-knees
[x] www.spawn-themovie.com
[xi] Spawn: The Movie
[xii] Ibid
[xiii] Martin Sheen Show, AOL, 7 Jul 1997
[xiv] New York Amsterdam News, 31 Jul 1997
[xv] Vibe, Sep 1997
[xvi] Spawn: The Movie
[xvii] Vibe, Sep 1997
[xviii] Vibe, Sep 1997
[xix] LA Times 12 Jan 1997
[xx] www.spawn-themovie.com
[xxi] Spawn: The Movie
[xxii] Los Angeles Times, 12 Jan 1997
[xxiii] Spawn: The Movie
Parts One and Two can be found here and here.
(Text is copyright 2024 Daniel Best and cannot be reproduced or published without express permission)