Spawn creator Todd McFarlane shares an optimistic update about the screenplay currently being written by Joker: Folie à Deux‘s Scott Silver.
“There’s a script but the writers are, they’re not quite sort of satisfied with their own work, which is what all of us creative people are,” McFarlane said in an interview with ComicBook.com. “We put it on paper, and then we criticize ourselves. So they’re going through sort of an extensive sort of rework and rewrite of it. I was just on the phone a couple of days ago with Scott Silver, the guy who’s sort of manning the lead of it right now. He’s also the writer of Joker and Joker 2. We’re all planning and hoping and moving towards having this done so that we can take it out so that we can find our studio finally pre-Joker 2 launch, which comes in October.”
McFarlane continued by teasing how the new Spawn movie will not be a traditional hero versus villain tale like the previous live-action adaptation from New Line Cinema released in 1997. He shared additional insight about the writing process with Silver and how the reboot’s finale will “have some meaning and some purpose, not just that the good guy won.”
“I wish everybody could hear the conversation because he is so impassioned about what he’s talking about,” McFarlane said. “He is so engrossed in what he’s doing… It’s not like he’s just like, I’m just trying to get it done. It’s just not a good guy versus bad guy story… He said the other day, ‘I’d rather take a swing and it be too big of a swing then to not take a hard enough swing at it…. He’s kind of fearless and he doesn’t want to replicate what he knows is sort of the safe, probably predictable path that most people would go because it’s the proven path, right? Just wants to bend it. He wants it because we’re gonna do R-rated, and we’re gonna do it, and it can’t be mini-Marvel and mini-DC. It can’t.”
The long development of the Spawn reboot
McFarlane announced plans to write and direct a Spawn reboot in 2007. Over the next ten years, the project faced numerous setbacks with a revolving door of attached screenwriters and studios. In 2017, McFarlane finalized a deal with Blumhouse to produce the reboot, with Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx attached to star in the title role. McFarlane remains attached to direct Spawn with Silver, Malcolm Spellman (The Falcon and The Winter Soldier), and Matthew Mixon serving as screenwriters.
Spawn does not have a set release date, although Blumhouse CEO Jason Blum has teased a 2025 release window.
