To say that Blumhouse’s Spawn reboot has become something of a passion project for Todd McFarlane would be to deal in wild understatement.
After all, McFarlane has been attached to the project since as far back as 2007, at which point he vowed to drag Al Simmons back onto the big screen by whatever means necessary – even if it meant financing the film himself.
Fast forward to the present day, and that same boundless energy has kept Spawn on life support. All it’s taken is a little help from Gotham’s Clown Prince of Crime to get Al Simmons back in action. That’s according to Todd McFarlane himself, who told attendees at a recent FAN EXPO in Vancouver (h/t ComicBook.com) that his “dark and creepy” Spawn movie is now teetering on the verge of development… and we have Joker to thank.
Everybody in Hollywood wants an R-rated, dark comic book movie, and Spawn is at the top of their list. The phone calls are coming in fast and rapid. I’ve been talking to a couple of Academy Award people, I’ve got the investors getting lined up. It’s changed ever since the Joker from being me begging them to do Spawn dark and creepy, to them asking. So I’m telling you it will happen this year. This year. And I will direct it. I will be directing it.
That’s right; perhaps more so than even Deadpool, the blistering success of Joker – itself an R-rated success story – has stirred interest in adult-oriented comic book movies. Toss in the addition of Jamie Foxx and Avenger star Jeremey Renner and it would seem McFarlane has everything he needs to create what he describes as a supernatural thriller. That elusive start date has never seemed so close.
Indeed, should everything go according to plan, Spawn will go before the cameras before the year’s end, which may allow McFarlane to schedule his long-gestating reboot for that all-important Halloween release window – exactly as he intended. It has taken an awful long time, but it looks certain that Al Simmons is primed for his second coming.