Todd McFarlane’s Spawn Movie Showing Signs Of Life After More Than a Decade

The Spawn movie first announced back in 2009 has finally found its writer in Brian Tucker.

This news comes nearly a year after it was revealed last September that the movie’s script had been taken in a new direction. Tucker, who is perhaps best known for writing the script to 2013’s Broken City, has been hired to write a new script for the movie, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

Todd McFarlane, the actual creator of the original Spawn comic, will direct the feature film, with Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions set to produce. McFarlane will also produce the movie and Carla Hacken will serve as the executive producer.

As if to bring this movie out of development Hell — much in the same way the titular character literally returns from Hell — it seems this Spawn movie is finally happening. McFarlane formally re-announced the movie back in 2017 alongside the news that he’d be directing. The following month after that announcement, it was revealed that Spawn would film in 2018 with a $10 million budget.

Then, in 2018, Jamie Foxx was cast as Spawn, something he had been “aggressively pursuing” since 2013. Things went quiet for a few months and then Jeremy Renner joined the cast as detective Twitch Williams. THR reports that Foxx and Renner’s involvement with the movie today, however, is unclear due to how much time has passed since their initial casting. THR says insiders say the two actors might be approached again after Tucker’s script is written.

Greg Nicotero of Walking Dead fame was brought on board to design the Spawn reboot back in 2018 and it seems he’s still attached to the project. Speaking to Comicbook.com last month, Nicotero said McFarlane told him that the movie is going to be low-budget and “down and dirty.” He also said McFarlane wants the movie “to feel more like the animated show, where it’s like Spawn meets David Fincher.”

However, the designer didn’t seem 100% convinced the movie was happening.

“Every once in a while, I’ll reach out and go, ‘Hey, Todd, what’s going on with this? Are we ever going to make this? Because I’m really in love with the design work we did,'” Nicotero said. “Look, I hope it will happen. I know he’s very passionate about it.”

Perhaps Nicotero will feel much better about the project’s future when he learns that the movie finally has a writer attached to it.

For more about Spawn, read about how the franchise’s Sam and Twitch are getting their own TV show and then check out this story about how McFarlane is ready to spawn his own comic book universe. Read about where McFarlane got his inspiration for Spawn after that.

Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.