While news has been relatively quiet on the development of a planned Spawn film for about a year, creator Todd McFarlane has provided an update, indicating a major announcement is coming.

McFarlane, who is slated to direct cinematic adaptation, has confirmed the movie is still in the works but admits he did not receive the reaction he personally hoped for from those he approached with the script he wrote. According to McFarlane, his prospective collaborators were perplexed by the perceived scarcity of Spawn himself appearing in the script.

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"The update on that was that the script that I wrote -- I liked it, but I'm biased -- didn't quite garner the enthusiasm that I was hoping for, because the reaction from most people was, 'Why isn't there more Spawn?'" McFarlane told CBR. "I turned in this horror movie where the boogeyman only comes a couple times. They couldn't quite get their heads wrapped around it and I kept saying, 'Jaws isn't every scene either and I think he's the star of the show!'"

Last year, producer Jason Blum confirmed active development was continuing on Spawn, hinting that big moves were occurring behind the scenes. As McFarlane helms the expansion of the Spawn comic book line, starting with this June's Spawn's Universe special, he has revealed that the planned film has since hired new screenwriters to take a crack at the script. While the writers themselves have not been identified, McFarlane teased that they are of a particularly accomplished pedigree and will impress fans upon their official announcement.

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"We sort of agreed to let some veteran hand sort of have their go at it. We've got a couple huge, big-name writers who are in the middle of the process now and I think when those names go public, it's going to blow people away. We actually just got an update yesterday, so all of that is still moving forward," McFarlane continues. "Once that script gets to the place we're at, I'm guessing with the pedigree of everybody I've already got, plus the names of the writers, it will be a fairly easy sell with that story; it's still moving and grinding."

Written by Todd McFarlane and illustrated by McFarlane, Jim Cheung, Stephen Segovia, Brett Booth and Marcio Takara, Spawn's Universe #1 goes on sale June 23 from Image Comics.

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