Todd McFarlane to Write and Direct New 'Spawn' Movie

Todd McFarlane's linked with Blumhouse to release his 'Spawn' film.

Todd McFarlane at Emerald City Comic Con
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Image via Getty/Mat Hayward

Todd McFarlane at Emerald City Comic Con

In September of 2016, comic book creator and Image Comics President Todd McFarlane was featured on AMC's Geeking Out promising a "scary, badass Spawn reboot." For those unaware with the original Spawn comic, Spawn was a Marine named Al Simmons who went on to become a CIA operative who took out a number of targets, including innocents. After being murdered by his partner, Simmons was sent to hell because of his actions. He made a deal to see his wife one more time in exchange for his soul. What he actually got was resurrected as a demonic antihero who took to the streets, eliminating thugs and other forms of bad guys.

McFarlane, who had a memorable tenure at Marvel Comics, including as being one of the definitive artists on the Spider-Man line (and is a co-creator on the Venom character), but he left to form Image with a number of disgruntled comics artists. Spawn hit the streets in May of 1992 and became a huge success, churning out an impressive line of action figures, an animated series on HBO, and a 1997 movie, which McFarlane wasn't a fan of (even though it pulled in ~$88 million at the box office, more than doubling its budget), and has desired to reintroduce his iconic character to audiences in a new movie since 2009.


It looks like that "reboot" talk was real talk, as it was announced during San Diego Comic-Con 2017 that McFarlane has partnered with Blumhouse (who put out Jordan Peele's Get Out earlier this year) to put out his Spawn film, which he plans on writing and directing. This would be McFarlane's first directing gig, but in a statement, Blumhouse said that "Having worked with many visionary directors, I think Todd’s unique artistic talents will only add to his role as director of this film."

While the 1997 Spawn film starred Michael Jai White in the first superhero film starring a black character, McFarlane told Vulture that the difference between his film and the original will be "night and day," including him saying that the lead in his film won't even be Spawn. He said that his pitch is that Spawn doesn't talk, which he says made Hollywood question him, but he says he refers back to movies like Jaws, where the title character didn't talk, so the film was more about the humans dealing with this "monster."

As of right now, there's no word on when Blumhouse and McFarlane Films plan on releasing Spawn, but it should be intriguing, especially with McFarlane completely on board.

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