Todd McFarlane's long-gestating movie about his famous comic-book character Spawn may be on hold for now as Hollywood's writers and actors fight for a better deal with the studios, but it wasn't too far away from being finished before the two strikes were called.
McFarlane has spent years trying to get the project off the ground, to the point that it’s become almost a quixotic quest. Last we heard, producer Jason Blum told Comicbook.com that they were aiming for a 2025 release, but the script still wasn't finished, and cannot be during the ongoing WGA strike. Speaking to IGN today about another Spawn development - that the character will be appearing in Call of Duty Season 6 (read our full chat about that here) - McFarlane did give us a little update on where the movie was before the strike.
He says the latest rewrite of the screenplay by writers Scott Silver (Joker), Malcolm Spellman (Falcon and the Winter Soldier), and Matt Mixon was up to page 80 before the strike. The comics and toy legend insists his desire to get his movie made remains stronger than ever, and is hopeful that once the work stoppage ends, the script can be completed and he and Blum can then pitch it to studios.
“The writers have been thinking about it a lot, hopefully, because they're not able to do the writing. So all they can do is think about it so that as soon as the strike's over, they can quickly finish the script. I’ve seen up to page 80 of the present script, so they're near the finish line. I think they'll get it done fairly quickly and then we'll do some rewrites and we'll be in Hollywood,” he says.
Of course, one of the reasons there continues to be strong buzz about the Spawn reboot is that Academy Award-winning actor Jamie Foxx and Avengers star Jeremy Renner are attached to star in the movie. Both, however, have endured serious health issues recently. Renner was badly hurt in a snowplow accident earlier this year, but is on the road to recovery. Foxx, who is due to play Al Simmons/Spawn, was hospitalized after what his family called “a medical complication.” McFarlane has been in contact with Foxx to check in on the actor and see how he’s doing.
“Yeah, it’s just checking in as a friend, not trying to have any big discussions about a movie or anything, just checking to see how his health is,” he says. “Jamie says he's on the mend and it was a pretty deep hole he went into and he is climbing back out, but he's confident he's going to be ready to go. I have full faith that he's just a very strong-willed person and he's going to get back to the top of his game.”
