It has been nearly a quarter of a century since we saw our first and only live-action adaptation of Todd McFarlane‘s Spawn comic book character back in 1997. The film starred Michael Jai White as our titular hero and while it was well-received at the time of its release, it has largely become a topic of ridicule among the cornucopia of comic book adaptations today. While some fans of the franchise enjoy the movie for the cheesy campy 90s fun that it is, it is not exactly a movie that has held up particularly well over time.
McFarlane spent years trying to get a sequel to this 1997 Spawn film adaptation made and it languished in development hell for around a decade. Then in 2007, McFarlane relented and announced that rather than a sequel, a reboot of the Spawn franchise was now in development.
We have been waiting for over a decade for a more concrete update on this new reboot, which Todd McFarlane is hoping to direct himself. McFarlane plans on taking his super-edgy spike-covered 1990s leftover and making a gritty, brutal, hard R-rated adaptation that will stick close to the violence in the original comic book source material.
While that sounds like something that fans would definitely be interested in seeing, is that actually the film that McFarlane is planning to give us? Apparently, it might not be! At least according to actor Michael Jai White (Black Dynamite, Arrow), who famously played the dark hero Spawn in the 1997 film.
In a recent interview with CBR, White mentioned that he had spoken to McFarlane about the project somewhat recently and that the whole thing seemed completely off the wall! He seems to be doubtful that the new Spawn film project will ever get made, at least in its current form, saying:
He’s been trying to get a new movie up and going for 23 years so I don’t know! The last time I saw him, he was telling me about his idea of Spawn being “ethereal fog” that you don’t see, like Jaws, and he strikes and you never see him and I’m like ‘Okay, good luck with that!’ Personally, I wish him well, that would be a major investment.
That would certainly be… a choice. It sounds like a completely different concept than the Spawn character that fans know. Maybe keeping him off-camera most of the film was part of a strategy to keep the budget down? At this point, people know what Spawn looks like, so one would think that they likely want to actually see the character on screen if they were watching a Spawn movie. Making Spawn an ethereal fog would certainly be a major change for the character, to say the least.
White goes on to comment that he doesn’t know how much of a director McFarlane actually is, likening him more to a “Stan Lee” or an “idea guy” who created the Spawn character, and suggesting that someone else should probably direct. He also implies that he thinks that in reality, McFarlane knows he may never get the movie made but rather he keeps talking about it to drum up attention to the character who has definitely passed his time in the limelight. White said:
I don’t know Todd to be a director at all. It’s kind of like Stan Lee: He created the character but he doesn’t direct him and I guess somebody would have to pony up a lot of money for Todd McFarlane to direct for his first time directing this movie idea that he has. I’ve heard about Jamie Foxx starring in it and wish them well. I don’t know, maybe it continues because this is what people like to hear from Todd McFarlane. He can get attention by promising another Spawn; I don’t get it.
White is correct that Jamie Foxx was set to star in the film and take over the role of the chain-wielding antihero from hell, but that may no longer be the case! In 2018, it was announced that Oscar winner Jamie Foxx and Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner would be starring in the new Spawn film. Back in March of 2020 however, McFarlane let slip that the entire project may be falling apart following the departure of Jamie Foxx. While McFarlane did not specifically name Foxx, in an interview with Shoryuken he mentioned:
Last week I got some discouraging news, we had an academy award-winning guy who was going to do the movie with us, but he fell off. We had people willing to fund the movie as long as we had this guy attached but schedules were conflicting, and things had to change. That’s how close we are to getting this thing off the ground.
As Foxx was the only Oscar winner announced to be involved with the film, it seems highly likely that he was the academy award-winner that has departed the project. It makes sense that this new Spawn project may not be able to secure the funding needed with the loss of a star with Foxx’s drawing power. This would seemingly bring the project back to square one.
So is Michael Jai White right? Is this project doomed to be talked about for an eternity and never to actually be made? Only time will really tell at this point. The one thing that is for certain is that Todd McFarlane is still talking about the long in-development Spawn reboot, and that he believes it will happen eventually. It may just be a while.
What are your thoughts on a new Spawn movie? If Jamie Foxx is out, who should star in the film? Or should they even carry on trying to make it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below and stick around Geek Anything for all of the latest Spawn updates!
