Spawn: Todd McFarlane says reboot needs to happen now or never

The long-in-development reboot of Spawn has gone through many paces but news about its progress has been non-existent recently. Even though the news has been limited, creator Todd McFarlane says too many people want it to happen for the project to fall apart but he believes it’s a now or never situation in regards to getting the ball rolling.

McFarlane recently spoke with Bleedingcool.com and he made it clear that the reboot has many people in its corner, especially in the wake of the success of movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home. Audiences and studios wanting more comic book movies should work in its favor:

“Something’s going to give in the next few months, right? There’s too many people pushing in that direction, again I’ve got a call later today on that very subject. You can imagine Spider-Man makes a billion dollars and everybody sort of gets sort of… I mean they were already crazy, now they just got twice as crazy. I mean they got crazy when the only movies that were making money were superheroes, and then Venom goes and rocks it, and then Spider-Man comes in and obliterates it, so now they’re almost singular in their mindset of what kind of ideas they’ve got. So something has to happen. We’ll never get to the top of the mountain if we can’t do it now, with everybody wanting to do it now. Fingers crossed. I would say it’s now or never.”

Created by Todd McFarlane, “Spawn” is a comic book that was first published in 1992 by Image Comics and, as of 2019, it’s the longest-running creator-owned comic book series. There was a film adaptation done back in 1997, starring Michael Jai White and John Leguizamo, but it was met with overall poor reviews and so-so box office. 

McFarlane expressed his desire about making an R-rated Spawn reboot after the disappointing release of the 1997 film. The reboot finally gained some traction when Jamie Foxx signed onto the film in 2018 and it was also announced that Jason Blum was producing while McFarlane would be taking on writing and directing duties. The reboot is said to have a different tone than the original film and will be more in the horror genre. According to McFarlane, the film will go “dark” and “ugly” with less fun and more serious and supernatural elements. McFarlane has been pretty secretive about the script and plot other than saying it’s not an origin story.

Back when The Forever Purge was released last summer, Blumhouse’s Jason Blum was asked by Comicbook.com about the status of the Spawn reboot and while he was quick to say it’s still going to be made, he said the script was taking a bit more time to perfect. He was a bit vague on the details but he still sounds very enthusiastic about the project still being made by saying, “Oh, yeah, we’re going to make it. We’re going to make it. It takes a while to get the script right, but we’ll make it.”

Do YOU think the Spawn reboot will ever happen?