It’s been 30 years since McFarlane Toys broke onto the scene and changed the toys and collectibles landscape forever. As you might expect, Todd McFarlane and the team have some pretty big plans in place for 2024, including some cool new Spawn figures and the debut of a new line of Fallout toys based on the upcoming Prime Video series.
To learn more about what’s coming for McFarlane Toys in 2024, IGN spoke with McFarlane as part of IGN Fan Fest. Read on to see these new toys up close and personal and learn more from McFarlane himself.
Spawn’s 30th Anniversary Figures
It comes as no surprise that McFarlane would want to mark the 30th anniversary of McFarlane Toys. But how? The company already revisited the original Spawn figure via a wildly successful crowdfunding campaign in 2020. Where do they go from there?
The answer is a new wave of figures that includes both remakes of classic toys and some brand-new offerings. This new line includes remakes of two 2007 releases - Hellspawn and Commando Spawn, both of which have been “digitally remastered” based on the original sculpts.
“We try to stay pretty faithful to them,” McFarlane tells IGN. “The packaging obviously is dramatically different. We tried to go back to the retro packaging, which was the all-plastic clamshell, right? Currently, we use a lot of cardboard, but when we first came out, we were known for our packaging that was all plastic and then had the little flange on the side. We used to do a lot more art on the side, that side flange off to the left, but we're currently restricted to how big the package can be by the big retailers. They weren't quite as picky about space when I began 30 years ago.”
Also in the works is a new figure based on McFarlane’s cover art for Spawn #311. That issue features Al Simmons in a “Wakanda Forever” salute in tribute to the late Chadwick Boseman, and the figure follows suit.
“I did this drawing shortly after the sad news came out that Chadwick Boseman had passed away with his illness,” McFarlane says. “I'd met him a couple of times, charming man. I mean, people do stuff on Twitter and put out their messages and whatever else, and I just wanted to do something different. So I thought I'd pay my tribute with an image of my Spawn character, Al Simmons, basically paying tribute to him.”
Finally, McFarlane Toys will release a two-pack set that includes figures of both McFarlane himself and a version of Spawn based on McFarlane’s original concept designs for the character. All four releases are available for preorder now at select retailers, and the McFarlane Toys Store will also offer exclusive versions with signed art cards.
We were curious if McFarlane has any particular favorite releases from the past three decades. Surprisingly, he didn’t point to Spawn or other adult-oriented lines like The Walking Dead or Mortal Kombat, but rather McFarlane Toys’ series Where the Wild Things Are figures.
“We put out a line from the children's book Where the Wild Things Are, and maybe because I liked the books so much when I was a child, I thought they turned out good because we were able to get the cross-hatching that the author Maurice Sendak sort of put in his artwork. We did so much detail and that was when we were pretty early in the game. And people said, ‘It'll never hold up, Todd, it's not going to work. You can't do that.’ And it did hold up. So it taught me that not only could we do detail, but from that point we should continue to push it to see what we could do even more and more.”
McFarlane Toys’ Fallout Figures
In another big development for its 30th anniversary, McFarlane Toys is adding a major new franchise to its roster - Fallout. In conjunction with Amazon MGM Studios and Bethesda, McFarlane Toys has landed the rights to produce figures based on the upcoming live-action Prime Video series.
The new Fallout line falls under the “Movie Maniacs” umbrella, which focuses on 6-inch scale posed figures.
“I constantly have my radar up, and our people have our radar up to just say, what's the internet looking at? We should go after some of that,” McFarlane says. “So one of our newer ones is Fallout. And later and a couple months from now, we're going to make an announcement about another big, big, big brand. And you hope they succeed. You hope you can get the fans to get excited. And then if all that happens, then you hope that when your contract runs out, they'll renew it because sometimes they don't.”
McFarlane notes that one of the biggest challenges with a franchise like Fallout is getting the facial sculpts just right. If they don’t resemble the actors, the figures are basically dead in the water.
“We've got the license specifically for the TV show on this one,” McFarle says. “So we get actors' likenesses, which is always fun because I've always told my sculptors, if you're going to get any part right on this figure, it better be the face, because if you get the face right and everything wrong, people will forgive you. But if you get everything right, but you don't get the likeness, people go, ‘What? I'm not buying this.’ So it's always a dangerous sort of task when you say, let's go for movies and TV, and we're doing the real people. If you go monsters and creatures, that's easier. But once you get into we're doing some other big star that somebody knows about, you better nail it because if you don't, the Internet can be a hostile place very quickly.”
Following up on our Fallout toy sneak peek, fans can expect more news on the Fallout line on March 8. The series premieres on Prime Video on April 12.
The Return of The Walking Dead
Not only is McFarlane Toys diving into the irradiated landscape of Fallout, they’re revisiting another major post-apocalyptic franchise in 2024. The company recently reacquired the rights to The Walking Dead universe, in partnership with AMC and Striker Entertainment.
It’s too early to reveal any new Walking Dead figures just yet, but we do know that the line will include both physical figures and digital collectibles.
The Status of the Spawn Movie
Finally, we couldn’t talk to McFarlane without getting a status update on the long-gestating Spawn reboot. In 2023, McFarlane told IGN that they were nearing the finish line with the script before the Writers Guild of America strike. He said the latest rewrite of the screenplay by Scott Silver, Malcolm Spellman, and Matt Mixon was up to page 80, and he was hopeful they could complete it once the work stoppage was over.
Since then, producer Jason Blum told ComicBook.com that he’s still committed to a 2025 release date, and that the script is close to completion. McFarlane notes that, at this point, he and his collaborators are simply waiting for the right place and time to make the Spawn reboot a reality.
“What we're hoping for right now is that we will kind of be in the right place at the right time,” McFarlane says. “And here's why I say that. We all have always, from the very get-go, wanted to do an R-rated movie. Period, done, out. So just that sets you apart from a lot of the superhero fare that's out there. And I'm not saying that's better or worse, I'm just saying it's different. You can't do Marvel-lite. I don't think you can do Marvel-lite or DC-lite and succeed. I think people will just go, well, why not just get the real thing?”
McFarlane continues, “So we know we have to go to R, but I don't think that there are that many characters that can live in that space and it makes sense. But that's what we want to do. We want to do something off on the edges that will be risky. I guess that's the word. And everybody's pumping in that direction. And if we do that right with the success of Joker 2 and Deadpool, it should be good timing. Fingers crossed. That's the theory.”
McFarlane also revealed an unexpected source of inspiration for the new movie - 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby.
“What was to me so intriguing about that movie, even as a kid, was that it was just kind of odd-ish as you're watching it,” McFarlane says. “And then you're just going, ‘I don't really understand what's going on.’ And then you thought you were watching one type of movie, and then by the end you went, ‘Oh my gosh, what?’ So Scott wants people, at the end of it, to be sort of frozen in their seats for a moment, not only with the experience of the two hours, but with the ending and to just go, ‘Whoa,’ and then walk out and then go, ‘Well, that opens up a can of worms.’ And then hopefully we come back a couple of years later and make this sequel.”
Be sure to check out the IGN Fan Fest 2024 hub page for all the latest news and reveals and to find out how you can watch along with the event.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
