Spawn In Hollywood

Or…How A Now Barely Watchable Movie Made Comic Book and Hollywood History: Part Four

Selling Spawn

The movie was finished, editor and ready to go. New Line gave it a release date and then sat back. Preceding Spawn would be latest Harrison Ford action film, Air Force One and coming immediately after it would the Mel Gibson/Julia Roberts pairing Conspiracy Theory. The three films were staggered in such a way that they would appear in three consecutive weeks, with the theory being that they’d not take anything away from the other for their opening weekends.

McFarlane was adamant; Spawn would debut at the number one spot at the box office and leave everything else in its wake. McFarlane was also quite sure that the recent Warner Brothers film, Batman and Robin, frankly the worst in the entire Batman series, would also be left in Spawn’s wake.

McFarlane went into overdrive to sell the movie to the media and fans. He appeared at the annual San Diego Comic Con where he announced the roaring success of Spawn during the regular Image Comics panel.

‘He was in full promotional mode,’ recalled Rob Liefeld, who was there observing the panel.

And at that time, Todd came down as he often did. The room was about 75% capacity. It was very full, not standing room only, not completely packed. Todd's mic was able to take him about halfway down the aisle. He would roam around like a talk show host, and he was talking about the fact that, ‘The Spawn movie is going to come out and it's going to be number one, and there's going to be a new king of all media, a new king of all media. Old Howard Stern, ain't gonna be the king of all media, Ole Toddy, number one cartoon on HBO. Number one toy the Spawn toys. Number one comic. And I'm going to have the number one movie in the world, and I'm going to be the new king of all media.’ Those words left his mouth. And I was like, holy shit! Wow. ‘They're moving outta the way of Spawny. I got Air Force One, Harrison Ford in front of me and then Julia Roberts and Mel Gibson behind me, and Spawn is right down the middle. They avoided the Spawn. Harrison Ford on one end and Julia and Mel, and then the Spawny.’[i]

It wasn’t just the Comic Con crowd that McFarlane was bragging to. ‘I'm telling you,’ McFarlane told reporter Jim Kershner, ‘it's going to be the No. 1 movie that week (opening week). That's not even boasting. That's a fact. We'll make a $10 bet.[ii]‘

‘I'd like to think that he's a wholly original character, and you know, aren't I a genius,’ he told The Globe and Mail. ‘It's not that often that we actually feed the hunger of a certain group of people with something that's got an edge and a bite to it. So, if you starve people, and a little crumb comes along, and we happen to call the little crumb Spawn, then all of a sudden it tastes like a delicacy to them.[iii]‘

I don't want Spawn to be a one-hit wonder. Walt Disney is dead, but Mickey Mouse is still here. That's what I want for me and Spawn.[iv]

‘Our marketing research showed that kids who didn’t know about Spawn simply weren’t cool,’ bragged Goldman[v].

‘Spawn is definitely summer spectacle, but the look is more edgy, more gothic,’ Dippé said, ‘we always wanted to make movies that we’ve never seen[vi].’

The opening weekend for Spawn saw the film take $21,200,000 at the box office. This was the third best opening weekend for a New Line comic book-based film, following Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Mask. The record, for comic book films, in 1997, was Batman Forever which had taken $52,800,000 in its opening weekend. Batman and Robin were third on the list with $42,900,000[vii].

That opening weekend saw Spawn debut at number 2 at the box office in its first full week (although, as it’d been previewed, it counted as its second week – Hollywood numbers are unique), behind Air Force One. The movie opened at 2,536 cinemas and with a weekly box office of $27,277,325, it looked good for McFarlane.

Then Conspiracy Theory dropped at 2,806 theatres and blew both Air Force One and Spawn out of the water, with both films in their third weeks. Spawn was placed into more theatres (2,604) but took only $12,914,800, a mere $2,000,000, or so more than George of The Jungle.

The fourth week of Spawn was worse. Miramax dropped Cop Land, starring Sylvester Stallone and Robert DeNiro, which went straight to number one. Spawn was overtaken by George of the Jungle and dropped to six on the box office list, having been pulled from 150 theatres.

It was over. Spawn’s fifth week saw it take $2,123,052. Air Force One, Cop Land and Conspiracy Theory were holding steady with over $10,000,000 each and even George of The Jungle was taking double of Spawn’s takings Spawn was on the way down.

Week seven and Spawn was on at 570 theatres across America and had made $590,860 at the box office. In total it had made $52,584,458, which was impressive, but the two films that McFarlane had stated were released on either side of Spawn due to fear had blown it out of the water. Air Force One had made $160,414,255 in the same amount of time as Spawn, and Conspiracy Theory $68,408,612 in five weeks.

Harrison Ford, Julia and Mel had beaten Spawny into submission.

Not that McFarlane was crying poor. Once the film had grossed $35,000,000, he received a bonus cheque of $200,000. Once the dust settled on 1997 McFarlane was handed $1,000,000 in bonuses as the film hit certain triggers.

A tie-in film novel, written by author Rob MacGregor was also released. MacGregor had penned the official film novels for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and The Phantom, so he was familiar with the genre. The premise of the story wasn’t quite what he expected.

‘As I remember, I was startled to see the hero killed in the first chapter,’ MacGregor later recalled. ‘I knew it was going to be a strange story, and I hoped I could make sense of it. It turned out okay. I thought it was a pretty good movie, too.[viii]‘

The novel, based upon the original script for Spawn, threw up a few surprises, with more character development between Simmons, his wife Wanda, and best friend Fitzgerald. This was material that had been filmed, viewed by White, and subsequently excised from the final product.

Also of interest was the original name for Jessica Priest – Jessica CHAPEL. Chapel, of course, was the character that Rob Liefeld had created, and who McFarlane had inserted into the comic book as pawn’s assassin. McFarlane, who wrote the original story, had changed the gender of Chapel, but not the name. It would take a falling out between McFarlane and Liefeld for the name change to become final.

And Simmons wasn’t killed in the first chapter, well, not in MacGregor’s novelization.

The Top 250 films of 1997 were announced by Variety at the end of January 1998. Leading the way was a comic book-based film, Men in Black, grossing $250,004,561. Air Force One came in at number 4 with $171,880,017. George of The Jungle rounded out the top ten with $105,239,073.Conspiracy Theory was in the top twenty, at number 17, with $76,118,990.

Spawn sat at number 31 with $54,879,992. Beating it out were two Star Wars reissues, Con Air, Batman and Robin and a Jurassic Park sequel. Spawn wasn’t even the top money maker for New Line in 1997. Michael, a John Travolta film which had been released on Christmas Day 1996, made more money in 1997 than Spawn.

Out of the fourteen movies released by New Line Cinema in 1997, Spawn did hit the number one spot, beating out the likes of Boogie Nights, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and Wag the Dog. As of 2021, Spawn is ranked at number 33 on the list of all time domestic box office and number 37 for international box office for New Line Cinema.

After its cinema run, it was recut and released on VHS and the new DVD format for rental on 23 December 1997, with the hopes of cashing in on the Christmas market. The first 45 days of the release would see the movie for rental only, after which it would be available for sale. Two versions were released, the standard cinematic version and the recut R-rated Directors Cut.

Here was the opportunity for Dippé and McFarlane to restore the movie to what it had been before PG-13 butchering. The chance was now available to restore the Al Simmons-Wanda-Fitzgerald subplots and character development, along with the many ab-libs by Leguizamo, the violence and horror themes. It wasn’t to be.

The Directors Cut reinstated just over two minutes of deleted footage (mainly violence), along with alternate scenes and dialogue, and yet it still managed to come in two minutes shorter than the theatrical version. It didn’t contain the footage that Michael Jai White had talked about seeing in his first screening, nor would it ever.

As a bonus, the video/DVD was issued with new material as the promotional push for seasonal sales ramped up. ‘We've got the music video of '(Can't You) Trip Like I Do,' by Filter and Crystal Method on both the VHS PG-13 version and the DVD,’ new Line’s senior marketing manager Josh Lobis said. ‘Among the DVD bonuses is a hidden music video of Long Hard Road Out Of Hell by Marilyn Manson and Sneaker Pimps that will take some creative scanning to uncover. We also got promotional soundtrack copies to send to retailers as an inducement to buy into all three video releases.’ Also on the DVD was a Making of Spawn The Movie featurette, storyboards and sketches.

New Line Home Video went all out to promote the video, going as far to include discount coupons for other new Line films and for the Spawn HBO series in each package. The cover was redesigned and featured a chrome etched collectors’ card and a personal message from McFarlane. Commercials were block booked and McFarlane was tapped to do an on-line chat session via AOL.

‘Spawn is a legitimate franchise and calls for a lot of marketing muscle,’ said New Line VP of marketing Sarah Olson-Graves. ‘We know how to reach the core fans, like with our print campaign in publications like Fangoria and StarLog, but the franchise also appeals to those in the general audience who like a good sci-fi action film. So we're advertising for two weeks on the Sci-Fi Channel.[ix]‘

Also in time for the Christmas season was a special edition of the Spawn album. McFarlane created art for a new alternate CD cover, limited to 50,000 copies, as the album was re-issued with a bonus track to boost sales.

‘After the success of the alternative cover on the first release, Todd was great in getting this new artwork to us,’ Immortal/Epic West Coast marketing VP Al Masocco said. ‘We've added a bonus track, This Is Not a Dream by Apollo 440 and Morphine and are getting a teaser ad for the soundtrack on both video versions.[x]‘

In its first week of video/DVD rentals, Spawn took $2,050,000, which saw it ranked eighth overall on video rentals and sales for the United States[xi]. Ahead of it on the list were films such as My Best Friend’s Wedding, Con Air and George of the Jungle. It dropped a spot the following week, but took more money, with a gross of $3,360,000. Debuting that week was an old foe, Conspiracy Theory, which took in $5,550,000 in rentals. Spawn moved up to a high of seventh in its third week, with a gross of $2,270,000 and then dropped off the top ten rentals list. At that time it had taken exactly $8,000,000 in rentals.

The two movies that McFarlane had boasted about beating, Conspiracy Theory and Air Force One (which was finally released in February 1998) obliterated Spawn in the video stakes. In its first week of rentals, Air Force One grossed $12,160,000. Conspiracy Theory would remain in the top ten for twelve weeks, grossing $40,380,000 and Air Force One grossed $46,210,000 in eight weeks. Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts had crushed Spawn again.

Spawn didn’t make any top ten lists for videos sold. If it was any consolation to McFarlane, neither did Conspiracy Theory, but Air Force One spent six weeks in the top ten list for sales. The lack of sales shouldn’t come as a surprise as the bulk of videos sold in 1998-1999 consisted of children’s movies, comedies, Titanic and Star Wars.

The last movie item to be released should have been one of the first. Spawn: The Movie Adaptation finally hit the shelves in early 1998. The book itself was a straight up adaptation of the film’s script as drawn by Carlos D’Anda and Mark Irwin, along with four pin-ups, one of which was inked by McFarlane. The whole package was capped off by a rather pedestrian cover and, unusually as it was published by Image Comics and overseen by McFarlane, it proved to be just another weak movie comic book. The comic buying public were disinterested in the adaptation. At a time when the regular Spawn comic book was selling around 150,000 per issue, the movie adaptation sold a mere 41,873 copies, which proved disappointing.

Once the dust had settled, Spawn came in with a final, worldwide, gross of $87,900,000. It wasn’t the worst result, but not the best.

NEXT: Part Five. Hollywood accounting and explaining Spawn’s profit v loss.

---

[i] Robservations #118

[ii] The Spokesman Review 17 Aug 1997

[iii] The Globe and Mail, 9 Aug 1997

[iv] Calgary Herald, 26 July 1997

[v] Edmonton Herald, 26 July 1997

[vi] Ibid

[vii] Box office details for Spawn are taken from variety magazine and Box Office Mojo

[viii] The Telegraph (UK), 5 Oct 2018

[ix] Video Business, 30 Mar 1998

[x] Billboard, 20 Dec 1997

[xi] Rankings and grosses for video are taken from contemporary VidTrac Results

---

Parts One, Two and Three can be found here, here and here.

(Text is copyright 2024 Daniel Best and cannot be reproduced or published without express permission)