Fincher loses head over Torso

For those of you who aren’t comic nerds like the best of us, Brian Michael Bendis is best recognized for breathing new life into the comic book industry with co-creator Michael Avon Oeming on their series Powers, a gritty real-life take on detectives investigating crimes involving superheroes. He’s also blamed for reinventing our favorite web-slinger for a new generation of fans in the critically acclaimed Ultimate Spider-Man books. As for Torso, I never read it. And I don’t need to, because I know it rocks, and the movie will surely blow my suspenders clear across the room. Check this out: it’s about a post-Untouchables Eliot Ness and his inability to solve a case involving a serial killer who would decapitate his victims during 1930’s-era Cleveland. I can’t say that I’m very surprised about this, because his exploits were hugely sensationalistic and highly embellished, mainly by himself to look like a hero in the public eye. Simply put, Ness was a press whore. How else do you think the papers got all those great pics of him busting up some of Al Capone’s booze cartels? HE called them! And the Cleveland Torso Murderer case was his downfall. In Capone’s biography, he occupies all of half a page. Sure, The Untouchables was an amazing TV series, and so was the movie, but they are historically inaccurate. Alas, I’m sucker for all tales semi-biographical, and that’s why I know this book is amazing, especially when these stories are based on actual events and fleshed out to fulfill all those geeky fantasy stories you had cooked up in the back of your head, finally they are given life!

Now while Panic Room was less than stellar, it still looked great. So with David Fincher directing (Se7en, Fight Club, and, uh, Alien 3…) you can guarantee Torso will feature some pretty kick-ass visually disturbing scenes. Kinda makes you wonder what he could have pulled off had he not refused Batman Begins, maybe that movie wouldn’t have been a total and utter waste of my time.

Ol’ Davey Finch better make sure getting mixed up with a washed-up hack like Todd McFarlane as producer doesn’t damage his career, either. Maybe he doesn’t realize who this guy is. Do you think he’s even seen ‘Spawn’? Who’s bright idea is it to hire this zero for animated sequences in movies and music videos? He’s a kick-ass illustrator but licks balls when it comes to producing. OK, his toy line is pretty rockin’… and I guess that Pearl Jam video was pretty sweet, too… but that is IT! For an interview with Mr. Canucklehead on this project and more, click here, but not there (’cause that link goes nowhere). Let me summarize it for you if you feel that pulling out your nose hairs
with a hot branding iron would be less painful: Mr. McFarlane wants to
produce a new Spawn movie, which he is comparing to Jaws. You heard me.
Jaws. Spawn. Todd McFarlane is officially touched in the head.

No news as of yet for the cast, and with earlier and very impressive Ness incarnations including Robert Stack, Kevin Costner and Tom Amandes (personal fave), I’m very eager to see who will step up to the mantle this time.

Too cool for school. Bendis	I know he’s a fellow Canadian but I so wanna punch his face in. McFarlane.
What a rugged man. Fincher.	Cover of Torso, by Bendis and Andreyko