After being put on the back burner, the long-awaited Spawn film is back in play.
The Hollywood Reporter claims Broken City writer Brian Tucker has been hired to write the script for the film. Blumhouse productions is pushing the film along with Spawn comic and character creator Todd McFarlane attached to direct and produce. Carla Hacken is serving as executive producer.
The project has been sitting in cinematic limbo since 2017. After reading McFarlane’s initial script, Jamie Foxx and Jeremy Renner were attached to star. Since so much time has passed, it’s unclear if both actors are still involved, but the actors may jump on board once again once they see script rewrites.
The first issue of the Spawn comic was published in 1992 and is the longest-running creator owned comics, thanks to McFarlane, one of the founders of Image Comics. Spawn centres on Albert Francis Simmons, a black-ops agent who is betrayed and killed by fellow mercenary Bruce Stinson, and his soul is sent to Hell for his murderous past. While in Hell, he makes a deal with the demon Malebolgia that allows him to return to the Earthly plane — but that comes at a cost. He returns with superpowers but is horribly disfigured, and his family has moved on without him.
This isn’t the first time Spawn has been adapted. In 1997, New Line Cinema created a live-action film starring Michael Jai White as the titular anti-hero. In addition, the animated show Todd McFarlane’s Spawn premiered on HBO in 1997 and was on the network for three seasons.
McFarlane has been itching to expand the Spawn universe and is weeks away from releasing King Spawn. Will this expansion get the cinematic treatment? Well, let’s get the first movie on the books first shall we!