Jamie Foxx is artistically in shape for Todd McFarlane’s Spawn

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

SPAWN comic book creator Todd McFarlane is collaborating with Blumhouse Productions to bring his character back to the screen with a gritty reboot, and Jamie Foxx has been cast in the title role – which seems somewhat odd, because McFarlane has said that Spawn will have a small number of lines in the film, and will only be showing up at certain moments. He has compared Spawn's presence in the story to the presence of the shark in JAWS.

Spawn is a role Foxx desperately wanted, though, and in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter the actor revealed that he has been pursuing SPAWN for years:

Six years ago, I flew to Phoenix to find (McFarlane) and throw my hat in the ring. I had done all my research on Spawn. I know everything about the character and what he had done. He was taken aback. I said, “Whatever you decide to do, I wanna be first up.” And what I tried to do is stay artistically in shape. 

Of course, there’s the aesthetic sense of what Spawn is, but in the cerebral sense, in [McFarlane's] script, Twitch [to be played by Jeremy Renner] is going through something. He prays to God, nothing happens. Should he pray to the devil? Spawn interjects himself into Twitch’s life and Twitch says, “Who are you?” I said that I want to stay artistically in shape so I can deliver the line or the feeling: “I’m both. I’m good and I’m evil. I was blessed by God, but I was raised by the devil.” 

When I explained that to him, those years back, luckily it stayed with him. Even when he was still met with the task of finding who it was, I said, “I challenge anyone out there not to make it competitive. I challenge anyone who was more ready. More ready to give everything. Because you can’t challenge someone as far as who’s the better actor. Because there’s always better actors, better actresses." It’s what you bring. Things worked out.

As Foxx mentions there, he'll be co-starring in SPAWN with Jeremy Renner as homicide detective Maximilian "Twitch" Williams III, who is the lead character in the story – to continue the JAWS comparisons, Twitch is this film's Sheriff Brody.

A production start date hasn't been set for SPAWN yet, but Foxx says 

…we’ve already started crafting things. Clay Fontenot, who was the stunt guy in the Iron Man suit, he’s crafting Spawn now. That's the exciting part. When you see it, he’s gonna have his own identity.

Previous Spawn adaptations include a 1997 live action film and an animated series that ran for three seasons between '97 and '99, each season consisting of six episodes. Michael Jai White played Spawn in the film, while Keith David provided his voice in the series.

We'll be keeping an eye on the new SPAWN as it gets closer and closer to filming.