Todd McFarlane talks Spawn reboot, Jamie Foxx and more

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

I don't want to come off sounding like a d*ck here, but if Todd McFarlane spent as much time actually working on getting the long-gestating SPAWN reboot off the ground and in front of the camera as he does talking about it, maybe we could've already seen the film happen. But once again McFarlane is flapping his lips about the project, this time with Game Rant, and it sounds like the same ol' spiel.

“Fans always ask and the answer is always the same; the movie has been sitting in my head for 10 years. I’ve begun the screenplay, people have been bugging me about this thing forever… The only reason it’s always been slowed up is that I write, produce, direct and so I just need to get the proper amount of time to be able to finish that screenplay and then be able to do the rewrites whether it’s me or somebody else [who does them] and then go in and direct it.

“I’m about a third through the screenplay. The whole movie is built on index cards so I just got to convert it onto the paper but I got like two hundred scenes, you can’t even have that many in a movie… There’s a couple of people that have kind of put a gun to my head and said we want that screenplay no later than December so that we can start shooting next year. So that’s right now [where we’re at] I’ve talked to my people and told them, ‘you gotta find me the time. I gotta get this thing done by December so that we can start shooting by next year. Maybe shoot it up here in Canada.’"

You may recall that back in February we shared that McFarlane had stated that he'd been in talks with an Oscar nominated actor for the SPAWN reboot, only to learn in July that DJANGO UNCHAINED star Jamie Foxx was 'aggressively pursuing' the lead role. But when asked about the potential casting, McFarlane surprisingly doesn't seem that enthused, stating…

“At the San Diego Con, Jamie Foxx came out and they were doing an interview and [he said] ‘I make a good Spawn, right? I met with Todd and I want to do Spawn.’  And I was like, ‘I thought we were keeping that [quiet].’”

Game Rant then asked whether Foxx is the actor that McFarlane actually wants to play Spawn:

“No, no, no, I’m just saying he said it out loud and then all of a sudden all the studios were phoning me again saying, ‘Todd, see if we can even get somebody in there."

Even with the buzz of Jamie Foxx's potential involvement (which can certainly generate plenty of attention from investors), McFarlane is toying with the idea of financing the film himself, stating…

“My goal to some degree is to self-finance and I know [people] go, ‘that’s dumb and that’s crazy,’ but years ago, Mel Gibson did it with ‘The Passion of The Christ.’  So I sort of call this one, Spawn from hell: my passion of the anti-Christ. In my mind I can do this thing with 10 million bucks and if you keep it small they’re just gonna get an unknown director anyway for that kind of a budget, so I go, ‘If you’re going to get an unknown director, let me be that unknown director.’ Again, there’s nobody that’s argued it – they just go, ‘Then where’s the screenplay? Get it done.’” 

10 years. We've been hearing about a SPAWN sequel, remake/reboot for 10 years. So yes, McFarlane…listen to the people who are telling you to get the script done. You can't have a movie without a script, and in all honesty a lot of fans can not even begin to fathom what the hold up in getting it finished could be. Call me a cynic, but if the idea has been sitting in your head for a decade, you've been talking about making it for the same amount of time, people have been wanting to see it happen and big name actors are wanting to be involved, I can't understand why the script hasn't been completed. But whatever…

McFarlane goes on to say…

“Do I think I can get some A-list people in the movie? Absolutely! The A-list people have friends that are also A-listers. So if I can hit that deadline in December then we can go into production [and] it’ll be a real movie. Even if its quote-unquote low-budget so that I can direct it, it will be a real movie.” 

I'll believe it when I see it. Somehow I feel like we'll still be hearing the same ol' rigamarole from McFarlane in another 10 years. But hey…he's been teasing us with this film for years and years. Why start believing it now?