McFarlane, Todd (McFarlane Toys CEO)
Dread Central Staff
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Ever since this site, and the one before it, has been in existence, we’ve always wanted to be able to interivew Todd McFarlane. We’ve come close a few times, too, but our man Tindalos finally made the dream a reality when he attended the McFarlane Toy Store & Showroom grand opening back in October. Along with chatting with Chief Toy Designer Ed Frank (here) and artist Greg Capullo (here), he got to sit down with the man himself, Todd McFarlane. Dig it!
Dread Central: Firstly, it’s a pleasure to meet you finally.
Todd McFarlane: Well, I appreciate you coming.
DC: I’ve been an admirer from afar for a long time…Since your Spider-Man days.
TM: Wow! That does go back…All of the sudden, I like to think, “Ah, that was just a few years ago”. I actually quit Marvel within a few days of the birth of our first child. And she’s 13 now…
DC: (chuckle)
TM: Yeah, and I had had a whole career leading up to Spider-Man. So, you start to think, “Wow! I must be… getting old…”
DC: Well, I’m here for Dread Central, so most of what I’d like to discuss with you is dealing with the “darker side” of what you do here. First off, the Movie Maniacs line has been leaning towards the action genre as opposed to the horror genre. Was this a conscious decision?
TM: Um… Not necessarily. I guess it depends on your definition of maniac. So, I can argue the John Belushi in Animal House was a maniac. So, as we knew we were going to start burning through sort of the A-List horror movies we had to start to go, “Well how broad is the definition of maniac?” Cause we’re going to be out of the horror stuff in a short period. We had to be able to put guys in there like, you know, Kurt Russell in Escape from New York. Although he may not be quite a maniac you have to make sure that definition is broad enough to allow us to bring enough products out that are wide range enough so that I just don’t, everybody says it’s horror, then 18 figures and I’ve hit everybody and now I’ve either got to go back to the beginning or just start doing characters that nobody cares about.
DC: When you guys, especially in the Movie Maniacs line, and I’m sure it has a lot to do with marketing and what you guys enjoy personally, what really goes into deciding what comes next. When you looked at The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and chose it as the next line-up, what’s the process there? Does the studio come to you or do you seek out certain license?
TM: That one’s a little bit different than some of the other ones. At that point, it was produced by Michael Bay. I know Michael. We were actually trying to work on the project together. He had a producing partner, a guy named Brad Fuller. So we were talking and I ended up seeing the outcome of the film. I thought it was terrific. I thought, for a 
redo, staying fairly faithful to the first one just basically getting more sophisticated with it. Which I thought was actually the right thing to do. But playing it dead serious. I thought it was pretty cool and creepy. I also knew we were getting close to the end of the “A Guys”. We had done Leatherface before; the original Leatherface, at the beginning of the Movie Maniacs. It might have even been in the first series… The first two at least… We were starting to get to that point where we either start doing, you know, Leprechaun or another Freddy Krueger. And so, I go, “No. We need to go back to some of the original ones.” Some of the contracts for some of those guys were tied up. Then it was like, “Oh yeah! They’re doing a remake of Leatherface!”
Now, fast forward a little bit, Michael Bay didn’t necessarily own the rights to license it. That went though New Line who released the movie. They wanted not just one figure. They wanted a line. So I went, “How many does there have to be?” They said, “Four.” Which is why you have the four figures. Then after that they go, “You can do what ever you want. You can play favorites after that.” They wanted me to expand the line because they didn’t want to get lost in the shuffle. That is why you have some of the characters that may not be as well known. But some of them, I can argue, are not bad toys. I mean Old Monty there with the cut off knees. Even if you haven’t seen the movie it’s a pretty cool toy. Who wouldn’t want some old gnarly guy in a wheelchair you can push across your desk at work? Or put in front of some guy you don’t like. What the heck’s that? What does it mean? I don’t know. It’s just sort of cool stuff. So, when you get there we’ll obviously make less of each one of those. We’ll make more of Leatherface and some of the other ones from Aliens And Robocop. But it was just that we had certain rules on what we could and couldn’t do. It’s not like we all went out of our way to make the old man. We had to make four. So, if it’s not going to be the old man who’s it going to be? I thought he was more interesting than some of the other characters.
DC: So, they said four. But you could pick which four?
TM: I could pick the four.
DC: I have to ask you about Giger. What was it like working with him? I mean are we going to see more of that kind of work?
TM: Here is sort of the simple rule for all of it: We usually see more of something if the first one sold. It’s tough sometimes when people say, “I want a four year contract and three lines.” I say, “I can’t guarantee you that because I don’t know if the first one is going to sell.” So for Giger we wanted to get the first one out. It took a long time. We went through a lot of time and effort trying to just get it right. He’s very particular, but then again that’s what makes him who he is. So finally we got the final sign off. We’ve been threatening this project’s coming out for a long time, I think it was something like two Toy Fairs, but now it’s actually official. We actually got to make it. It will be interesting as it’s not really a figure. I’d say it’s truly like a piece of sculpture. Like a relief of some kind, like a movie picture relief. So we’ll see. I mean, he has some dazzling images that, to me, could easily fall into that trap. We could do a whole collection of his. We just have to see whether the first one is going to take. When people understand the concept that they’re not buying a figure they’re buying art. If they say, “Yeah! Cool!” Then we’ll go and do more.
DC: Yeah. I think we’d like to see his entire Necronomicon done. Hope fully it will be successful for you.
Can we talk about the Tortured Souls line and…
TM: You can ask whatever you want! I’m here to answer whatever you ask!
DC: All right! Then let’s talk about the movie.
TM: Okay.
DC: Things are filtering down about scripts being talked about. What’s the official status on that project?
TM: We sold Tortured Souls to Universal. We had a writer we brought on board who wrote it. Clive (Barker) then took it under his wing, with the notes that they gave, and re-wrote it. They still weren’t overjoyed with that version. Clive just finished the third version. We handed that version into Universal on Friday (10/08/04). 
They said give a week and we’ll give you notes. So, actually, at the end of today I’ll probably I’ll make a call over there to see whether we need to re-write it again. Do we have to fix a little bit? Do you want us to fix a lot? Are you guys getting bored with this? Here’s what I do know: somewhere between the rewrites the option, the original option, lapsed. They didn’t hesitate to pick it up. So what that usually tells you is that somebody still has a hankerin’ to do it.
The question is, besides having the hunger to do it; you also have to get something that they want, so we’re trying to get to that point without unduly over selling it. In my last conversation with the executive, who was the same executive who oversaw Friday Night Lights that just came out, was that I think that this is a movie that the script doesn’t necessarily read scary. There’s certain scripts that you read that just read scary. This is a move that will be creepy. But a lot of the creep will be in how we visually show the elements that we’re looking at. Unless you’re going to go into a big dissertation you can’t say that when you’re writing the script. But Clive and I know visually what we’re looking for. I think this could be a really odd, bizarro, disturbing movie. We just need to get to a point where Universal is going to write the. At least I can still say that there is active development. This is still very active.
DC: Now this is going to be a new situation where you going to be developing a movie based on a line of toys that already exist. While other toy lines have been created out of movies that already have actors faces stamped to them. Will this line be recreated after the movie to reflect any actors faces?
TM: You know it’s possible, because whenever you make any translation from a comic book, videos or, in this case, toys you always have to abide by the rules of what you’re doing, which is film. So then again, if there are new characters in there… Clive wrote new characters that can actually expand into this world. The costumes get modified even though the character may have the same name. 
Then you say, “Ah! Way more people saw the movie than bought the toy. So let’s do a version of what they’ve seen there.” So that possibility is there. We own the rights to do that as part of the contract. Clive and I get to make the toys at our discretion.
DC: Richard Kelly recently mentioned that Donnie Darko had been licensed. Is that something that is coming out next year? Are we going to see Frank the Bunny?
TM: I don’t know if we’ve got that license. I’m trying to think. We keep chasing it. That’s been one that a lot of people have been bugging me about internally. It’s one of those ones that’s cool, and I like the character. But you still have to recognize that it didn’t break out in the truest sense. If you put out on the shelf how many are you going to be able to sell on a national level? It’s still that moment when have to take a bit of a step from personal taste, which is Todd the Artist that goes, “Yeah! That’s awesome!” Then, unfortunately, Todd the CEO has to come in and go, “But can we sell a Frank the Bunny? Can we sell enough of them so that we’re not burning the bridge?” I’ve struggled with that one for a long time. Maybe we’ll see how that all falls out.
DC: With the success of Ring and The Grudge, plus the forthcoming Ring 2, it seem Hollywood is picking up Asian Horror Fever right now. Do you anticipate pursuing these types of films for future line ups?
TM: Uh huh. Yes. We’ve actually gone after some of those licenses. We actually had the license for Ring 2. Then they delayed it. We were going to tie it with The Ring. So until that got sorted out we backed off from it. But, anything that has some interesting visual moments that you just go, “Wow!” Even if it’s just the girl in the bathroom in the opening scene. You know the flash. Or the girl by the TV. It doesn’t have to be the horrific moment. It needs to be a defining moment. You technically could do Heather O’Rourke in front of the TV in Poltergeist. Everybody remembers that moment. We’ve continued through the years with Movie Maniacs, and we have to get a lot more clever. In the beginning it was easy. You had all these “A Guys” and they were easy to grab. Now we have to get more creative.
A big thanks to everyone at McFarlane Toys for letting us be a part of the event, and especially to Mr. McFarlane himself for being so open with us.
Categorized:Interviews News
