Years after the 1997 HBO Spawn animated series ended, videos of creator Todd McFarlane doing live-action introductions to episodes began resurfacing among fans.
Speaking to ComingSoon, McFarlane reflected on the live-action introductions, which would often see the creator tell a brief story before the show began. According to McFarlane, the hook that he and Doug Liman — who filmed the intros and who McFarlane praised for now being “a big shot” — worked on them, and came up with the hook of “turn off the lights.”
“Yeah, interestingly, the guy who filmed them was a roommate of one of the HBO executives,” McFarlane said. “He had done a couple commercials, and so he said, ‘Hey, can he come and film them?’ And then next thing I know, I see his name and he’s doing huge blockbusters, and I’m like, ‘What Doug Liman? He what? He was just this roommate of somebody. Now he’s doing massive blockbuster movies. Wow. I got him when he was still a nobody. Look at him, he’s a big shot.’
“But he was fun to do and we came up with the hook of ‘turn out the lights,’ because I think even video games should be sort of played the same way that the only light — which is why theaters work so well — the only light should be coming from the movie itself and from the action and what you’re focused on itself,” McFarlane continued.
Todd McFarlane likes to watch things in the dark
“When I watch TV, I’m always turning off all the lights in my house. Sometimes some of the other people in the house are going, ‘Why do you always have the lights off?’ I just don’t want to be distracted by anything,” McFarlane said. “I just want to be the only motion. The only thing is that thing that’s square in the center. I think video games are valuable that way too. That’s why my son plays until the middle of the night, because I think he turns his lights off too and just gets absorbed into it.”
