Greg Nicotero, the special effects artist who also directs episodes of AMC’s The Walking Dead, is joining Todd McFarlane for the new Spawn movie.
McFarlane, the comic creator who originated the Spawn character, is making his directorial debut on the supernatural horror movie, which is being produced by Blumhouse. Jamie Foxx and Jeremy Renner will star in the pic.
Nicotero and his effects company KNB EFX will create a new Spawn design for the feature project.
The move is a reunion of sorts as Nicotero and KNB EFX Group worked on the 1997 Spawn movie that was made by New Line.
“I’m a longtime fan of Greg’s work and the projects his company, KNB, have done throughout the years,” McFarlane said in making the announcement of the hire. “Working with him once again, to re-invent the Spawn ‘look’ so it will match the supernatural theme in the movie, is going to be a fun process.”
Nicotero and his KNB have worked on The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead, as well as Preacher. His recent movie work includes Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, Pete Berg’s Lone Survivor, Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno and Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s This Is the End. He got his start with George Romero’s 1985 zombie movie Day of the Dead.
Foxx is set to star as Al Simmons, a black-ops agent who is betrayed and murdered, with his soul sent to hell for all the innocents he killed. He makes a deal with a demon who allows him to return to earth and see his wife, but in a cruel twist, five years have now passed and his wife has moved on. Simmons now roams the earth as a disfigured superpowered spawn of Hell who is trapped in the middle of a war between Heaven and Hell.
