Leonardo DiCaprio

The ‘Revolutionary Road’ actor is the first choice for the forthcoming comic book adaptation being helmed by Todd McFarlane.

Todd said: “The main character isn’t Spawn, per se, it’s the guy chasing Spawn. And I’ve always had Leonardo in the back of my mind.

“It’s a big wish, but his dad was a big fan of underground comic books and he came from that. It’s not a big special effects movie, it’s a character movie, so I could shoot it in 40 to 50 days and you don’t have to budget that much time.”

‘Spawn’ follows a CIA agent who is sent to Hell when he is killed by his boss. Desperate to see his wife again, he makes a deal with The Devil to become an undead Hellspawn, battling a number of enemies as he tries to get out of Satan’s control.

Although Todd wants Leonardo to play a detective, it is unlikely to be either Sam or Twitch, the two famed officers from the original comic series, as he is hoping to work on another project focused on the two characters.

He added to MTV News: “We had Sam and Twitch in the book, but because of some of the stuff I’m trying to sell in Hollywood, we might have to change the characters a bit.

“But it would still be a police character who is chasing down a case and in the middle of this ‘Godfather’-type movie, something weird is out there and no one knows about it except him and a few others.”