After the comic book series “Spawn” was first adapted for the big screen in 1997, there were the first reports in 1998 that a reboot would be made. Although this project was suspiciously quiet for years, series creator Todd McFarlane took on the project himself in 2007. Two years later he would start working on the script, which he finally completed in 2016. In late 2022, news broke that Scott Silver, Malcolm Spellman and Matthew Mixon had been hired to rework McFarlane’s script.
Since then, things have quieted down a bit around the ‘Spawn’ reboot, which – as of now – features horror specialist Jason Blum (‘Five Nights At Freddy’s’) as producer and Oscar winner Jamie Foxx (‘God Is A Bullet’) as lead actors. . In an interview with Todd McFarlane has now spoken out again about the current production status of the film. Even if the director is confident in the implementation, an alternative route may have to be taken than planned:
Here’s what the ‘Spawn’ reboot currently looks like
“2024 will be crucial for me anyway. Either I give Hollywood a chance to do it, and if not, there are a lot of outside investors waiting for me. So I try to make the right deal within the normal Hollywood structure. If not, there are many alternatives where people have found success outside the normal channels. And that’s what you’ve done before with independent films: you make your film and just find a distributor. I could do that now.”
McFarlane explained further : “Jason Blum is clearly one of the better ones at getting things done. They told me I could read the script this month, so the email goes out this week to remind them they promised me that. Something has to happen. Something will happen. But hopefully we can find a deal that involves all the parties that have been involved over the years.”
Overall, you can say that McFarlane definitely wants to implement his own “Spawn”, it’s just not entirely clear how. A few years ago he vowed that he would be responsible for the comic book adaptation, even if he had to put his own money on the table to do it. So if things don’t work out with Jason Blum or McFarlane doesn’t like the script, he can look for other ways to realize his passion project. Streaming services can of course play a crucial role in this.