For a guy that looks like a clear rip-off of Batman and Spider-Man, Spawn has some convoluted backstory. And in the decades since the character first appeared in the original launch of Image Comics, his mythos have only grown more overwrought, with each addition including ever more players in a war between Heaven and Hell.
It may not (yet) involve cyborg gorillas like Cy-Gor or any number of angels and demons who trouble the late Al Simmons, but the saga of a Spawn reboot on the big screen has similarly had a myriad of twists and turns. In 2019, Spawn creator and action figure magnate Todd McFarlane announced a deal with Blumhouse, masters of the B-movie hit. As previously reported here at Den of Geek, Blumhouse gave McFarlane the means to make the superhero movie of his dreams: a “dark, ugly two hours worth of movie” with “no joy.”
Strangely, this pitch did not leave folks demanding for Spawn to mope his way to theaters, and the movie has remained stalled in pre-productio, despite securing the involvement of Jamie Foxx and Jeremy Renner at various points. However, McFarlane promises that a Spawn movie will happen, sooner rather than later.
Speaking to ComicBook.com, McFarlane declared, “Either I’m gonna give Hollywood the best chance to do it and, if not, I’ve got plenty of outside investors waiting.” Calling 2024 his “make or break year,” McFarlane indicated that he has grown tired of waiting and will do what it takes to realize a new Spawn film. “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 channels and succeeded.”
