Another year, another non-update about that Spawn movie that Blumhouse and Todd McFarlane can’t seem to figure out. It’s been a pattern with this project for the past several years that small bits of news are followed by long periods of silence, so don’t get too excited.
Before we get into this latest little tidbit, here’s a brief refresher course…
Back in October of 2022, Spawn creator Todd McFarlane announced that Blumhouse was still on board the Spawn ship and that Scott Silver (Joker), Malcolm Spellman (Falcon and the Winter Soldier) and Matthew Mixon had been hired the write the script. Additionally, at the time, Jamie Foxx was still attached to star as the title character.
It’s been a long hard road out of development hell with his brand new Spawn feature, which Todd McFarlane had originally planned to direct. It seems he’s stepped aside from those desires, however, with a new director not yet attached to the film. As of October 2022, the Blumhouse project was seeking a studio partner, and that’s the last we heard back then.
Then in June 2023, Jason Blum provided a bit of an update in a chat with ComicBook.com. He noted that the film was very much still in development, with a 2025 target in mind.
So what’s the latest? In another brand new chat with ComicBook.com that just ran today (January 3, 2024), Todd McFarlane reveals that this year is his “make or break” for the project. What does that mean? According to McFarlane’s latest comments, Blumhouse has one more year to bring the Spawn movie to life. If they don’t, McFarlane is going in a different direction.
He explains to the outlet, “2024 is gonna be my make or break anyways, right? Either I’m gonna give Hollywood the best chance I can to do it and, if not, I’ve got plenty of outside investors waiting. So I’m trying to see if we can make the right deal within the norm of the Hollywood structure. If not, there have been plenty of examples, actually, a couple big ones last year, where people went outside the normal channel and succeeded. And people have done this before with independent movies; you make your movie and you just find a distributor.”
“That one, I could do in a heartbeat,” McFarlane continues. “Fingers crossed, I’m gonna give as much of an effort to those that live within the confines of it. Obviously, Jason Blum is one of the better ones at getting things done. They tell me I get to read the script this month, so the email’s going out this week to remind them that they promised me that. Something’s gotta happen, something’s gonna happen, I just know myself. Something’s gonna happen because if I can’t figure it out inside, I’ll figure it out outside. But, hopefully, we can figure out a deal that keeps all the parties that have been involved over the years involved.”
Is this thing EVER going to happen? Don’t hold your breath.
Spawn first appeared in Spawn #1 back in May 1992. The character first came to the screen with a 1997 movie from New Line starring Michael Jai White, and he got the animated series treatment courtesy of HBO in the late 1990s. Keith David voiced Spawn in the series.
In the comics, Spawn is a former black-ops agent who makes a deal with a demon after being betrayed and killed. The demon allows him to return to Earth, but when he returns, five years have passed, his wife has moved on, and he roams Earth as a disfigured spawn of hell.